Him and I
by Sheila Prior
Summary: Eponine and Enjolras are the two most oblivious people in Louisville high for the gifted and talented. The gang decides to try out for the musical, but there is far more drama offstage than onstage. Rated T for abuse, alcoholism, and feels. Modern Au
1. Chapter 1

**HELLO! okay. I am currently writing this at 10:50 pm, so sorry for spelling errors.**

Enjolras's P.O.V

I sat at my usual spot in the small clearing in the woods outside our school, Louisville high for the gifted and talented. It was a lot like any other day, I was thinking about how wacked up our government is, Marius was snogging his girlfriend, Cosette. Grantaire, my friend, who happens to be gay, was sipping a can of pop, usually it was beer, but we had confiscated his stash from him. Joly and Combeferre were both Reading. As always. Courfeyrac was running around the clearing's borders, with Gavroche holding onto his shoulders for dear life. Feuilly was off with his own girlfriend that day, we didn't see him much at the time. Cosette was with us that time, Marius had introduced us to her, and yeah she was nice, but she just, well, she was..blonde. She was kind of a ditz and that typical girlfriend who doesn't know the meaning of me time. I rolled my eyes as Grantaire threw his soda can up and down, up and down, up and down, an endless cycle of gravity vs usually drunk but today sober man.

"Will you quit that?!" I finally snapped at him. He shrugged.

"But Enjolras, I'm boooooooored." He sprawled out across the grass.

"So, make like Joly and read." At this, Courfeyrac laughed. Gavroche did too. Suddenly the final member of our group came running into the clearing, obviously very tired, Eponine. Gavroche's sister. She was, special, and not like the "Everyone's special" Crap. Like, actually special. I was derailed from my train of thought when she sat down beside me.

"Afternoon Enj." She's really the only one who can get away with calling me by something other than Enjolras, except maybe Gav, 'cause he's a kid. I saw her look towards Marius."Oh get a room you two, that's disgusting." She turned away. The couple didn't hear her and just continued...the sight. I turned to Epoinine, who looked like she had something on her mind."Oh, right, I almost forgot, I was thinking, because we all need to participate in a play this year, we should all try out for the musical." She smiled. Marius smiled.

"That's a great idea Ponine, they're doing Wicked this year, right?" I saw her nod. "You'd actually be the perfect Elphaba." Eponine put a hand to her chest and pretended to be hurt.

"Are you saying I'd make the perfect witch, I am hurt Marius." She turned away jokingly. Grantiare and I were on the ground laughing. Gavroche roared with laughter above Courfeyrac's shoulders. Grantaire stood up form his laughing fit.

"Well, I too agree with this brilliant idea, those in favor?" Courfeyrac raised a hand, as did Joly, Combeferre, Marius and Cosette. Eponine looked to me with those big puppy dog eyes.

"Pleeeeease Enjy?" She begged. I prayed to every god that she didn't- and she jutted out her bottom lip, my resolve crumbled like a weak barricade.

"Fine." I resigned. They all cheered. Gavroche didn't want to, but we didn't pressure him, he was still a kid, despite being smart enough to be in high school. We heard the bell ring."Come on you lot, we;ve got acting class next." Everyone cheered at this. We had the greatest acting teacher in the world, . Sometimes he'd jump through the window and immediately start teaching. Other times he'd let us watch movie's and pick out our favourite characters, then act out a scene from that movie with our favourite characters. Needless to say he was our favourite teacher. We all walked into acting class and sat down, waiting for our teacher's grand entrance. Sure enough, three minutes later, he summersaulted through the door.

"Afternoon everyone. How are we all doing today?" We all answered with Varying responses. "Very good, very good." He sat down on the mini stage we had in the room."So, how many of you are trying out for the show?" Many of us raised our hands., some didn't. "Excellent. Enjolras, I didn't expect this, I hope to see you in the performance." I blushed in embarrassment. I saw Grantaire and Eponine smirk at me. I stuck my tongue out at them. Lamarque turned back to the stage."Okay, so, last class we watched Harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban, who were you're favorite characters?

* * *

Eponine's p.o.v

I walked home with Cuorfeyrac, Gav and Joly. Gavroche was piggybacking Courfeyrac. I swear those two are inseperable unless there are walls between them. I started thinking about lunch. I had noticed how in though Enjolras had been looking.

"You're thinking about him again, aren't you?" Joly interrupted my thoughts, putting his book in his Scrubs messenger bag.

"Wha-what, nooo, not at all, wait who, are we talking about?"I stuttered, trying to stay off this topic. Joly and a lot of the boys were absolutely convinced I had a crush on Enjolras. Joly rolled his eyes at me.

"You know perfectly well who we're talking about." He made an odd face and spoke in a high pitched voice."Pweeeease Enjy, pwease audition for the pway with me.' Please." I rolled my eyes this time.

"Well, this is our street. Come one Gav, down you go." I lifted my brother off his big friend.

"Aww, Come on Ep, let's go over to Courf's tonight, he said it's okay."

"Yes, but Courf also lives with 4 other sweaty boys." It was true, Courfeyrac, Joly, Enjolras, Combeferrre and Grantaire all lived together in a large apartment. Apparently four of them were orphans, had run away from home, or something like that, so Courfeyrac's father had allowed them to share an apartment in his large building. They had started their own band there, Les Amis. Marius had once been a part of it, but now he lived with Coestte. I was pretty sure that Feuilly, Gav, Cosette and I were the only people in our group who still lived with their parents.

"Exactly!" He protested. I sighed.

"Maybe some other time. I promise."

"Alright, fine." He resigned."Bye Joly, Bye Courf, see you tomorrow." The two boys waved and they headed down the road to their own place. I put Gavroche down and we walked back to our hell of a home. I should probably explain. My parents are drunken bastards. They cheated, lied and stole. They ran this run down old bar and pick pocketed everyone who steped foot in it. When we did something wrong, they would hurt us. Well they would hurt me. I tried to keep Gavroche from getting hurt. I would always want to take up Courfeyrac's offer to come live with him, but I didn't want to be a burden. Plus, I wanted Gavroche to have at least one motherly figure in his life, even if she was a total bitch. We walked into the pub and up to our room. I sat down at our makeshift desk, an old table top held up by a cardboard box filled to the brim with styrofoam. Gavroche sat down beside me and helped me with math. Even though he was my younger brother, and was only 10, he was the smartest person I knew. In turn I helped him with acting. it was one of the few things he wasn't good at in school, despite his favourite teacher teaching it. Some time later, after closing time, mom came up.

"Oi, you brats, dinner, now." She beckoned us down. We put down our homework and thundered down the stairs to the tables of the bar. On one of them were four bags of McDonalds. Gav's face lit up.

"Thank you mom, dad!" He called. I smiled.

"Thanks." They nodded in return before digging into their own food. We grabbed two bags each and headed upstairs, wolfing down the burgers and fries. It tasted like foods of whatever higher being there is. I didn't really have a religion. Gav was still too young to decide. Soon after finishing we went back to doing our homework before tucking ourselves in.

* * *

Some time later that night, Gavroche was still awake on his side of the room. We both slept on two separate mattresses.

"Ep?"

"Yeah Gav?"

"Can you sing me something?" He asked. This had started to become a custom each night. Or tradition, or ritual, whatever you want to call it. Recently, mom and dad had been a little harsher on me, a few more beatings here and there. Gavroche had been unfortunate enough to witness all of them. So, whenever he woke from a nightmare, he asked me to sing something for him.

"Sure, come here." I felt more weight on my mattress and Gavroche settle into my arms. I wrapped my arms around him and began singing.

 _A gentle breeze, from hushabye mountain, softly blows o'er lullaby bay. It fills the sails, of boats that are waiting, waiting to sail your worries away._

 _It isn't far to hushabye mountain, and your boat waits down, by the key. The winds of night, so softly are sighing. Soon they will fly your troubles to sea._

 _So close your eyes on hushabye mountain. Wave good bye to cares, of the day. And watch your boat, from hushabye mountain sail far away from lullaby bay._

When the song was done, I felt steady, gentle breathing against my arms. I smiled to myself and lay Gavroche back down on his sad excuse of a bed. "You deserve so much better." I murmured and kissed his forehead before settling back down in my own bed. The last thing I thought of, was what I should sing for auditions.

* * *

 **Hey guys, so this was my first chapter, please favorite and follow, and share and stuff. The song was hushabye mountain from chitty chitty bang bang. One of my fav childhood musicals.**


	2. Chapter 2

Eponine's P.O.V

The next morning we met up with Joly and Courfeyrac at the crosswalk. The ladder immediately picked up Gavroche and put him on his shoulders, running across the road. I followed with Joly, both of us laughing as we did so. At the next turn we met up with Cosette and Marius and we all walked to school. Combeferre and Grantaire and Enjolras and Feuilly preferred driving or riding the bus. The rest of us were outdoorsy people. By the time we had reached school, Marius and Cosette had snogged each other at least thirty times. A new record. We all walked into the school's foyer and went to the lockers we had designed ourselves. Mine had a whole bunch of music notes and drama masks on it. I grabbed an extra advil in my locker and slipped the pill into my cup of water from the machine. I swallowed it and hoped my bruises weren't very noticeable. I noticed Enjolras and Grantaire approaching.

"Come on, just one can?"

"No, you need help, and the intervention did nothing, no beer, or alcohol of any kind." The golden haired boy said to the drunkard. I sighed and went up to them.

"Morning guys. Have a good night?" I asked. Enjolras nodded, Grantaire shook his head. I chuckled."No wine last night I take it?" Grantaire pouted at my question.

"No."

"Thank god." Enjolras added. I giggled a little."Come on, we have dance class." I headed in that direction with Cosette, Marius, Enjolras, Joly, and Grantaire. The rest went to science. As we finished changing into our dance attire, we took our spots at the barre. When we finished the usual warm up, our teacher put us into our partners. Obviously she out Cosette with Marius, Grantaire and Joly went with some other girls we didn't know. And Enjolras and I were put together. I walked towards him as the teacher put more people together."Soo. Dance partner, what kind of dance do you want to do?" He asked me. He was nice like that. I thought about the different types of dance. A lot of people would probably do ballet, so that was out. Swing dancing would be waaaay to tiring for both of us. Then it hit me.

"What about ballroom dancing?" I suggested to him. He practically lit up.

"That's what I was thinking. It's nice and slow, not too tiring, and not a lot of people will pick that, it's perfect!" He high fived me. I grinned and we started to plan.

* * *

Enjolras's P.O.V

After dance, we all met up at the lockers and walked to art. We all had different kinds of art. Cosette, Marius and Gavroche preferred sketching, Joly, Combeferre, Grantaire and Feuilly loved to paint scenery and people, Eponine and Courfeyrac loved splatter painting and drip paintings, and me, I liked sculpture. After all, my friends did call me the marble man. Maybe that's why. That day I was working on a bust, when I noticed something rather odd. Instead of being at their usual stations, almost everyone was crowded around someone else's single eisel. I put down my hands and dried them off and made y way over to the crowd. I tried to peek over someone's shoulder, but to no avail. I huffed and found a hole in the crowd. I made my way to the front and had to keep myself from gasping. Eponine was at the eisel for one thing, that was new. But the thing that caught my attention was what she was drawing. It was all of us, From Feuilly to myself. Only, we were in what looked like the 19th century, wearing clothes that were from that time. And We were standing on something or other, it looked like a bunch of furniture thrown together. But, I was standing on the top, waving a red flag, and french flags hung in the background. I was in awe. I looked to Eponine.

"You drew this?" I asked. She nodded.

"Yep, I had a dream about it a while ago and wanted to get it out, it was so vivid." She explained. She was right. Her painting captured every detail of our faces, even R's beard. I laughed at how pompous Marius looked in the picture. I swear I could see her blush as she was showered with praise. Even Grantaire was speechless. Combeferre couldn't find a reason to critique her. And me, I gaped like an idiot at how life like it was. After I snapped out of my trance, I saw everyone had gone back to their stations. I muttered a bye and went back to my bust. I smooshed the clay down to a ball of clay again. Once again I began working on it, but it was no longer of a man, but something else, something I could truly be proud of. I smiled and began to shape it. After an hour or two, the bell rang and I put my project on the bottom shelf, so nobody could see it except anyone who used the bottom shelf. I washed my hands off and dried them. I found my friends some time later in the halls at our lockers. It was time for acting class once again, Gavroche was already on Courf's back. We all happily talked as we walked to our favourite class. I sat down with Eponine. Lamarque was giving us time to work on our auditions this class and those who weren't auditioning were working on other things. I looked at Eponine. I could practically feel the chair I was sitting in squirm with me. I was scared okay, give a guy a break for that.

"Sooo.." I started out. Great opener I know, note the sarcasm."Okay, I'm gonna be completely honest here, I've never tried out for a show in my life. What do I do?" I asked her, hoping she wouldn't laugh or make fun of me.

"Aww, is wittle Enjy scaared?" She teased me. I sighed.

"Shut up, I just haven't done this sort of thing before. I'm a little nervous, lay off." I protested, attempting to save my dignity. I saw Eponine's face turn from mocking, to soft.

"Alright, I'll help."

"Thank you thank you thanks you, you're the best, I'll pay you back, I promise." I thanked her again and again. She started to teach me what I needed to do for the audition. At the end of the class, I knew what my song would be.

* * *

I walked with Combeferre and Joly to the clearing. We had just come from science, and once again, Joly was getting worried about how he could possibly get sick. This was how it was after every science class. Combeferre calmed him down while I tried my best to not snap at the man.

"But what if pesticide gets in my mouth?"

"It won't get in your mouth, we all live nowhere near a farm." Combeferre assured him. I rolled my eyes and practically ran to my spot as we reached the clearing. Marius and Cosette had gone off on a lunch date, which meant no kissing, or sappy looks, or Cosette, for an hour and a half. Eponine walked through with Courfeyrac and Gavroche.

"I'm telling you, I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Really really sure?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely positively for sure, really f-"

"YES!" She yelled at him and sat down beside me in a huff."Enjolras, will you please tell this worry wart that I'm fine?" She asked me in the angriest tone I"d ever heard from her, and that was saying something. I turned to her.

"Whyy?" I asked, knowing I would probably end up regretting it. I realized I was right as she glared at me. I swiftly turned to Courfeyrac."You heard the lady she's fine." I said as quickly as I possibly could. Courfeyrac rolled his eyes.

"You won't back down from a teacher for a debate about an unfair amount of time to do homework, but you'l cower beneath Ep with a single glare? Pathetic." He shook his head. Gavroche laughed.

"Enjolra's is all scaredy pants when it comes to those, then again, who isn't when she gives you..the look?" We all collectively shuddered. Eponine rolled her eyes. I looked at Courfeyrac.

"Hey, what were you guys talking about anyway?" I asked. Courfeyrac looked at me.

"Well you see, Eponine, Gav and me-"

"Gav and I." Combeferre corrected.

"Whatever, anyway, we were in P.E, and when she walked out, I noticed there were bruises, lots of them." He glared at Eponine. "And this idiot is saying that she fell, a lot." He crossed his arms. As soon as he said the word bruises, Joly was at Eponine's side.

"Come on, let me see." He prodded. She shook her head."Please?" Another silent refusal." It'll only take-"

"I don't care how long it'll take, I don't want you guys looking at me." Eponine said. I put a hand on her shoulder.

"Come on Ponine, you know they won't let up until they see." I seemed to have convinced her because she sighed and was taking off her jacket so Joly could have a look. As soon as she slipped the jacket all the way off, my eyes grew to saucer size. Courfeyrac was downplaying it when he said there were lots. Blue, purple and greenish brown splotches littered her arms. Poor Joly looked close to fainting.

"E-Eponine, these don't look like fall bruises, these look like fist bruises." He sputtered out. Immediately Eponine pulled her jacket on.

"This is why I didn't want you guys to see, I knew you'd make a big deal out of it." I was mortified, someone had hurt her? The thought was nearly, well, unthinkable, but there it sat, the little blob in my mind, telling me someone had hurt my best friend.

"It is a big deal Eponine!" Joly protested, with more bravery I'd ever seen him portray. "Someone hurt our friend and we want to know what happened." He said in a quieter voice.

"And we want to know who so we can beat their ass into the ground." Grantaire cracked his knuckles. I nodded, for once, agreeing with him. Combeferre sighed.

"Both of you calm down, it's Eponine's business, if she doesn't want to tell us, she doesn't have to." He said, not looking up from his book. I looked at Eponine and saw how mad she was. I sighed.

"Fine." I reluctantly backed down. Grantaire did the same. It was obvious Joly was still worried, but he too backed off.

"Thank you." She said."Now, onto a muuuuch lighter note, what's everyone going to sing for the auditions?"

* * *

I rode the bus with all the boys except Courfeyrac that afternoon. I hadn't been riding for long when my mind drifted to Eponine. Those bruises, the way she had brushed it off, that wasn't at all normal, I had done the same a lot of the time when I still lived with my dad. That wasn't a happy time. I shook my head to clear those thoughts and looked down at my friends, who were all staring at me.

"What?"

"Enjolrasss." Marius prodded me.

"Yessss?" I mocked him. I only saw him grin happily.

"You wouldn't have happened to be thinking about our dear , would you have?" He asked. I felt my face go as red as my jacket. "He was, he totally was!" He cheered, probably alerting half the other passengers. I watched him exchange money with Joly. I sighed. I looked at the rest of my friends, all of which were supporting grins, wiggling eyebrows, or just plain old rolling their eyes. Marius looked at me."Come on man, you need to talk to her."

"I do talk to her, we have very interesting conversations." I protested."Why just last week she discussed the constitution with me." I heard about three groans, one moan, and five facepalms.

"Not that kind of talk dude, the kind where you talk about each other, and eat, and...possibly...snog." I went another shade darker.

"Wha- what are you saying, that I should-"

"We're all saying you should-"

"Ask her out!" They all blurted out, even Combeferre.

"We're just friends."I said before turning back to my phone. Again I heard collective head hitting and groaning, and moaning. I didn't care, Eponine and I didn't have any chemistry between us.

* * *

Right?


	3. Chapter 3

Eponine's P.O.V

Think of the worst fight you ever had with your father. It was probably about something like homework, or borrowing the car without permission, or heck, having sex when he wasn't home, I don't know. But none of that yelling compared to the pain I felt that night

Everything hurt. My sides, my head, my legs. Everything. But all I could see was Gavroche, hiding under the table as he watched with tears falling by the bucket load. Watched my father and his late night patrons beat the ever living crap out of me, all for coming home later than I should have from work. I heard choruses of this'll teach you, or this is for so and so. Suddenly I heard the horrible, fateful sound of my father removing his belt.

"Next time you disobey me, this will be a lot worse." I felt three lashes against my shirt, then it tore open and the leather snapped against my bare back, making the most horrible sound you could possibly think of. Eventually, after a few more hits, and I felt blood leaking out, I descended into darkness.

I awoke some time later, in our room, and Gavroche sat at my bedside.

"Ep!" He held me close and I tenderly hugged back. I ignored the pain, which had thankfully faded to a dull ache, and sat up slowly."Are you okay now?" He asked. It was painfully obvious my little brother had been crying. And I had been the cause. I had never felt worse than when I saw Gav crying. Not even during beatings.

"Yeah." I lied."Come on, up you come." I lifted him up and put him in my lap."Want me to sing for you?" I felt him shook his head. This was a little new. But then again, he'd probably want a song in the next little while.

"Can we just sit?" He asked. I nodded and rocked slowly back and forth with him, lulling him to sleep. When his breathing was even and soft, I slowly walked over to his mattress, trying not to stumble, and laid him down. I was about to go to my own, but he had a firm grip on my sleeve. I chuckled.

"Alright Gav, I'll stay." I murmured and laid down with him. I wrapped my beaten arms around him. I hummed a lullaby and closed my eyes.

* * *

The next morning, Combefere, Courfeyrac and Joly were the only ones to walk with us. I caught Combeferre taking a look at me. Multiple times. I decided to have some fun with the easily flustered boy."Like what ya see Ferre?" I asked. The other three laughed at Combeferre's face, which was steadily going red.

"N-no, well, I mean you're pretty, it's just..well...you're arm's bleeding through your shirt." He pointed at my sleeve. Instantly, Joly ran over to inspect it and I jerked my arm way from him.

"Hey! It's fine, it probably just started bleeding, I shouldn't be scratching mosquito bites." Good cover, way to go me.

"It's november, there shouldn't be mosquitos out." Coufeyrac pointed out. I silently cursed. I shrugged.

"Must have been an earlier one. Oh look, school, let's go in shall we, it's freezing." I ran in before they could say anything. I was so focused on getting away from them, that I didn't watch where I was going and I ran into someone, or rather, I crashed to the ground on top of Enjolras."Umm, morning?" He stopped blinking for a second, then laughed. Soon I joined in. The others came and helped us up. Joly offered me a band-aid and I shoved it into my pocket, claiming I'd use it later. Cosette and Marius came up to us and looked between myself and Enjolras. It was like their eyes were playing tennis. Suddenly they grabbed all the boys except Enjolars and me. WE stood there in silence for a second."Our friends are weird."

"To say the least." He replied, chuckling. I smiled at him and we decided to walk to dance together. I was looking at him, when I realized something.

"Hey Enj?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do you always wear that red hoodie? It's got to be filthy smelling by now." I took a whiff and tried to keep myself from gagging. He chuckled and smiled at me before putting an arm around me. I tried not to wince as he brushed my wounds.

"Well, my dear Ponine, I like to wear it, because it was the first thing you gave me when we met." I suddenly remembered and thought back to that day.

* * *

 _"Aren't you cold?" I asked the boy near me. He was shivering as we stood at the bus stop. My childhood friend and I were going to the same school, and it was awesome, but I expected to meet him at the bus, not his other friend. He shook his head._

 _"N-nope, n-not at all." I rolled my eyes and took off my hoodie. It was waaay to big for me, it was my father's size. One of his unfortunately. I took it off my shoulders and put it over the boy._

 _"There, now you won't be cold." I said. Then I punched his arm._

 _"OW! What was that for?"_

 _"That's how I show affection." I replied._

* * *

I laughed at the memory. Everyone had helped me learn how to properly show affection. With hugs and smiles. The way I treated Gavroche. I sighed as we got to dance class. Everyone else was already there and we caught wind of their conversation

"-absolutely oblivious. We have to do something."

"Yes, but what?"

"Wine tasting?"

"Movie?"

"Play"

"Concert?"

"What are all you dorks talking about huh?" Enjolras snuck up behind them and said it in their ears. They all screeched and scrambled back except for Gavroche.

"We were talkin bout how-" Coufeyrac put his hand over Gav's mouth and shook his head. I raised an eyebrow and told myself to interrogate them later. had just walked in and had us get into our partners Gavroche sat out as he was too young for partner dancing, so he worked on his homework. I stayed with Enjolras and we started to work on our routine. We flew about the room, as if on some sort of beautiful cloud of dancing. He was taller than me, blocking my view of anything else. We started our dance with a bow and then started once more. As the bell rang, we came down from our cloud and chnged back into our normal attire. We made our way to our next few classes.

* * *

It was about halfway through math when I started to feel rather dizzy I felt my back and was frightened as I felt a sticky wetness on my back. I wiped it off on my black pants and turned back to my worksheet. But something was off. I couldn't read it, any of it. I pushed the feeling away from the rest of the class. I pressed my jacket onto the wounds and prayed that no one would see. Luckily we had no phys-ed today so, i was safe from anyone seeing. As the bell for lunch rang, I stumbled to my locker and grabbed my money for lunch.

"Whoa Ep. You been hanging around grantaire, you look like you're drunk." I heard a familiar voice. It was Marius. No cosette to be seen.

"Where's your blonde beauty?"

"She's already at the clearing. But seriously, are you okay?" He asked. I nodded.

"Yeah." He shrugged and walked away. I sighed and made my way to the usual spot. I could see the spot and a few people there, when the dizzyness came back. I stumbled around a little, then, much like last night, Darkness descended upon me. I was able to faintly make out the colour red, and heard someone calling me. Then, sleep took over.

* * *

Enjolras's P.O.V

I saw Eponine fall to the ground and I rushed over to her. I lightly pinched her.

"Come on Ep, wake up." I sat her up and shook her a little.

"NO DON'T!" Joly yelled and came over."Come on, bring her over." I lifted her up and laid down my hoodie on the grass. Marius and Combeferre did the same. I put her down on the little makeshift bed of sweaters and stood back, then felt something. I looked at my hands and paled as I realized there was blood on them. "Enjolras, what is it?"

"Joly, look." I held out my hand for him to see. He paled just as much as I had. He turned her over and our eyes widened. blood stains were leaking through her clothes. Courfeyrac had put Gavroche down long enough to come look. "Gavroche, what happened to her?" I asked softly. He backed up away from me and sat down.

"I-I can't tell you." He stuttered. Gavroche had never stuttered. I looked back at Joly, who was pulling out scissors.

"Whoa whoa whoa, what are you doing?" I ran back over. He looked at me like I was an idiot.

"Cutting her shirt open, so I can see the damage without brushing her...you know what's." He said blushing. I heard a scoff and was astonished as I saw Cosette tear the scissors from Joly's hand.

"Alright, all of you out of the clearing, Joly, you stay here and walk me through what I need to do. Gav, go with the others, okay?" We were surprised to say the least by her willingness to help."Go!" Most of the boys ran out at the speed of light. Courfeyrac and I walked with Gavroche. But he stopped for a second. He turned back to Cosette.

"Hurt my sister and I'll gut you both." He said seriously. We stifled a chuckle as we walked out.

* * *

Joly's P.O.V

I looked at Cosette and steadily began telling her what to do. I hoped she caught everything. Once her shirt was off, I was able to take a better look at Eponine's back. I bit back a gasp as I laid eyes on the horrible sight before me. Her back was covered in scars and bruises, some old, some unfortunately new, others looked close to bursting, but we were focusing on the ones that had. Cosette didn't seem fazed by it as she asked me what to do next. I sputtered out a reply, something about cleaning the wounds. I always kept my first aid kit with my so I passed her some bandages and anything else she needed. Soon we were finished and we hesitantly set her up against a tree. We set to question her when she woke and Combeferre kept the others from coming in while we worked. It was a little while later when she woke. What I didn't expect was when Cosette told me to leave.

"B-but why? I should ask-"

"I said leave Joly, trust me, I know what I'm doing." I tried to argue with her, but her confidence was overwhelming and I reluctantly backed out. I was met with worried looks and pacing people, and worst of all, Gavroche was crying. I knew the poor kid was as stubborn as his sister, so there was no way we'd find out what happened to her with that.

"Is Eponine going to be alright?" Combeferre asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. I nodded.

"Yes, she'll be fine, Cosette's talking to her now." I assured them. I heard a collective relieved sigh. Gavroche ran up to me and hugged my legs.

"Thanks." I heard him murmur. I smiled and told him it was no problem. Courfeyrac took him from my legs and wiped away his tears. We waited for half an hour, then I heard rustling and the girls emerged from the trees. Enjolras immediately rushed to Eponine.

"What happened to you, why were you bleeding?" He asked. Eponine glanced at Cosette.

"Sorry, patient confidentiality." Cosette replied. Enjolras frowned.

"But you aren-" He started to talk. Then the bell rang, which meant it was finally time for the auditions.

* * *

Eponine's P.O.V

I took my spot in the auditorium and waited for my name to be called. I watched the different people go up. Marius sang some beatles song with Cosette and Combeferre. Joly and Courfeyrac went up with Grantaire and did a song from once upon a mattress, The king and the minstrel and I. Feuilly went up and did a love song with a boy named Jehan. Apparently both of them were big romantics and one had a high voice. Soon it was Enjolras's turn. I sat at attention as he made his way up onto the stage. He put in his CD and the song started playing.(Search up Freddie Stroma Knockin) I was in awe. I had always known Enjolras was talented, but he was on a whole different level than the rest of us. He sat down beside me and I shut my mouth. He chuckled.

"Was I okay?" He asked me. I nodded.

"Dude, you were amazing." I praised him for a while, then heard my own name. I slowly made my way up to the stage. I looked at my friends and recieved smiles and thumbs up. I took a deep breath and started singing as the music came on.

 _We come into this world unknown, But know that we are not alone. And you may knock us down, but change is coming and it's our turn now._

 _Hey, everybody loses it, everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes. And hey, I know what you're going through, don't let it get the best of you you'll make it out alive._

 _Ooh_

 _People like us we gotta stick together, keep your head up, nothin lasts forever. Here's to the damned to the lost and forgotten, it's hard to get high when your livin on the bottom_

 _Oohoh ohooh_

 _We are all misfits livin in a world on fire_

 _Oohoh ohooh, sing it for the people like us, the people like us._

 _Hey, this is not a funeral, it's a revolution after all your tears have turned to rage. Just wait, everything will be okay, even when you feel like you're goin down in flames_

 _People like us we gotta stick together, keep your head up, nothin lasts forever, here's to the damned to the lost and forgotten. It's hard to get high when your livin on the bottom_

 _Ohoh ohooh_

 _We are all misfits, livin in a world on fire. Oh oh, sing it for the people like us. Te people like us. You just gotta turn it up loud when the flames get higher._

 _They can't do nothin to you, they can't do nothin to me, this is the life that we choose, this is the life that we breathe. So throw your fists in the air, come out come out if you dare, tonight we're gonna change forever._

 _Everybody loses it. Everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes._

 _Oooh._

 _People like us we gotta stick together keep your head up, nothin lasts forever. Here's to the damned to the lost and 's hrd to get high when you're livin on the bottom_

 _Ohooh ohoooh_

 _WE are all misfits livin in a world on fire. Oh ooh, sing it for the people like us the people like us. You just gotta turn it up loud when the flames get higher(The flames get higher!) Sing it for the people like us, the people like us._

I heard clapping and cheering. I looked up at my friends. Gavroche was cheering louder than anyone. I smiled and made my way offstage. I sat down with them and smiled. But auditions were just the first part. The real fun was just beginning.


	4. Chapter 4

~A week later~

Enjolras's P.O.V

I decided to walk to school early that morning. I had a lot of things circling about in my head. At the top of the list. Auditions. I had been to the callbacks with Eponine, but hadn't worked with her. I had worked with her cousin, Alzema. And Feuilly's girlfriend, Musichetta. I had been promptly shooed out afterwords. Eponine was waiting for me outside. We had smiled at each other and talked about whether or not we had gotten the part or not. Well if we thought we did. Neither of us thought so. That was only the beginning. I was worried about midterms coming up, my projects that were due soon, whether or not I'd catch the cold that had been going around, and even christmas shopping was starting to weigh it's heavy heavy load on my mind. But the thing that was still bothering me, even after a week, was how hurt Eponine had been last week. I had tried to get it out of both her, Cosette, and even tried bribing Gavroche with candy. He took the candy from my hand, then ran. I had sighed and walked away. She had claimed that it was nothing and had come up with many varying excuses. One day she said she had backed up through brambles, the other she had fallen on scissors. I didn't know what to believe. But no matter what I said she wouldn't open up. Even the classic 'don't you trust me?' card had done anything to break the seal. She was as good as keeping secrets as I was. I sighed as I reached the school. I made my way into the piano room, my favourite room of all time and played a few old songs.

"Okay, what's up with you?" I jumped as a calm voice came from the doorway. I looked over and saw Combeferre. I sighed. He always had a way of figuring out how everyone was feeling. He was abut the same level of smart as Gavroche. It was a little scary. Once again I sighed and moved over on the piano bench, making room. He sat down as I began to play my favourite, waltz in A minor.

"I'm just really worried about the auditions, and school, and future christmas shopping. And I'm still worried about Eponine." I said. I could never lie to Ferre, he'd always be able to tell. I watched him nod in response.

"Well, you'll be fine with school, you're great at it. We're all nervous about shopping and the auditions. And Eponine is Eponine, she can take care of herself, and probably the rest of us if she had to." He chuckled. I smiled. He was right, I had nothing to worry about, I was being foolish. I smiled as I finished the song. I moved onto bluestone alley and looked back at Combeferre.

"Thanks man, you always know what to say." I clapped him on the back. He smiled and returned the favor.

"Any time."

* * *

I now stood in the drama room with Eponine, waiting for class to start to see who would be playing who. Lamarque burst through the doors, paper in hand and hurriedly told us to sit down. He seemed more excited than usual.

"Alright. So, here in my hand, is the cast list!" 'We all cheered happily at that."I have been given permission to read out the names to you." I sat on the edge of my seat.

"Madame Morrible: Musichetta

The wizard: Combeferre

Governor of munchkin land: Feuilly

Lion: Joly

Boq: Marius

Nessa Rose: Alzema

Fiyero: Enjolras

Glinda: Cosette

Elphaba: Eponine!" He finished. I looked at Eponine and she looked back at me. There was a silence, then we all cheered. I hugged her tightly and hse hugged me back as well. Wait, this meant I would have to

kiss her.

* * *

I was in music with the others. I sat at the piano, playing my new song. I looked at Eponine, who was talking with Marius. I knew that they were childhood friends and were best friends before they came to Louisville. Then he started pining after Cosette the day they got here and the rest of us hung out with Eponine.

"-earth to Enjolras!" I was snapped out of my thoughts and fell backwards on the piano bench. I heard child like laughter and looked up to see a head of blonde hair by the Piano.

"Oh come one Gavroche, did you really have to do that?"

"Yes, yes I did." He replied cheekily. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"What is it?" I asked, getting back onto the bench and putting my hands back on the keys. He sat down beside me on the bench and watched me play.

"Nothing, I just wanted to watch you play. Courf has the sax right now." He looked over at our big friend, who was playing an alto saxophone, the same kind as Gavroche. Eponine was sticking to her usual cello. I was a piano man through and through though. Heck, I even auditioned with that song, the one by Billy Joel. I looked back at the boy beside me.

"Surrre you did. And Joly loves the plague." I rolled my eyes."What is it?" He frowned and looked at me before leaning on me.

"I don't wanna go home anymore." He whispered. I froze. Sure every kid thinks of running away, but they never really mean it.

"What? Why?" I asked him.

"They don't like me there. Mom and Dad." He frowned deeper. I took my hands off the keys and hugged him.

"How about this, for tonight you can come sleep over with me and Courfeyrac." He instantly brightened and I smiled. Job well done me.

"Can Ep come too?" I thought about it.

"I say sure, but you have to ask her first." I told him. Who knows, maybe if she was sleepy enough, I could ask her about what was going on with the bruises and all. Gavroche too. I shook those thoughts away as Gavroche went off to ask his sister. My hands pushed random keys until I shifted into a melody. Before I knew it, the bell rang and class was over. It was finally lunch. And that meant food, glorious food! So anxious to try it. Sorry, Oliver reference, couldn't resist. Anyway, I walked with the others."Hey guys, I may or may not have told Gavroche it would be okay for him to sleep over tonight. Is that okay with you guys?" I asked. Courfeyrac nodded enthusiastically. Joly and Combeferre smiled. Grantaire grinned.

"Awesome." I smiled at their reactions. I then remembered Gavroche's earlier request regarding a certain brunette who I would have to share my first kiss with. I decided to see if Eponine wanted to come before asking them about it. As we entered the clearing, I tripped over a root. I heard multiple sources of laughter.

"Smooth Enj, smooth." I heard Eponine's melodic voice. I looked up and pouted.

"Don't make fun of me." I whined. She chuckled and helped me up. I smiled a little."Oh Ponine, you are the only one here who truly cares." I glared at everyone else, who was still laughing. Even Eponine was still slightly giggling. Oh her laugh is adorable. Wait, what am I saying? OH never mind. "Oh, right, hey Ponine, did 'Roche tell you about the sleep over?"

"Yeah. I think it's a great idea." I smiled and turned to the others.

"So is it okay if Ponine comes too?" I asked sheepishly. They looked at each other and shrugged. I smiled."I'll take that as a yes. Alright, will you guys walk, drive, or should we pick you u-"

"NO!" Eponine cut me off. I blinked in confusion. "Uh, I mean, we'll just walk and maybe one of you guys can meet us at the turn or something." She shrugged. I made a mental note to interrogate her about that response later and shrugged.

"Alright. I'll see you guys there at 6:00." We agreed on it. The rest of the day was boring and hot. And not in the good way. But at the end of the day, I was another day older, and was completely ready for a sleepover with my best friend.

* * *

At 5:55 I waited at the turn that we took most of the time whesn walking. I saw two figures approaching and saw as they slowly got closer and closer that it was Eponine and Gavroche. I grinned."Punctual as ever." I rolled her eyes. She looked kind of adorable in her sweat pants. Usually it was baggy jeans and sweatshirts. Tonight, a purple north face jacket, pink sweatpants and a tighter long-sleeved blue shirt. Gavroche had a jacket on over top what seemed to be space invader pyjamas that were waaaay to big for him. Like, even though they were stuffed inside his boots, the fabric slightly spilled over the top of them. Well, I knew what I was getting him for christmas. Check one off the list of twenty.

"Shut up you, I'm a theatre kid. On time is late and early is on time, late is death." I was confused. Gavroche was too. I shrugged and led them to the apartment building. When we got there, we rode to the top and stopped at the very top floor. since Courfeyrac's father owned the building, he allowed us to live in.. that's right. The penthouse. It was the greatest place ever. There were three bookshelves, one for me, one for Joly and one for Combeferre. There was a rack of wine bottles that were currently covered with a cardboard box and taped down. So Grantaire wouldn't be able to get to it. We all had our own rooms. Our living room was in the middle of it all. There were a few couches, by which I mean four. An oak wood coffee table stood in the middle of it and there was a plasma screen T.V above the gas fire place. There were about for kinds of gaming consoles. Complete with 5 remotes of all kind, and another whole bookshelf specifically for games. And yes, there were dance ones, and kareoke DVDs. Don't judge, we literally went to an arts high school. And my personal favourite, we had guitar hero. But the best thing was the grand piano, and all the other instruments there for us to practice. on one end there was a floor to ceiling window that lead out to a balcony where you could see all of the city. There was a nice bathroom that was complete with a tub and shower stall. We had a giant medicine cabinet, courtesy of Joly. The kitchen was nice, but still like a regular apartment kitchen. There was no dining room, so we always ate at the coffee table, which we had brought up so it was the height of a regular table. Long story short, Courfeyrac's dad was positively loaded.

"Oi! Boys! Gav and Eponine are here!" I saw the boys come out of their rooms. Each of our rooms were the size of master bedrooms and we had two spare rooms. I had been to each and every room so I had memorized the place, no big deal. Joly's room had the medical symbol stuck to the door. Inside was another bookcase and a nice long desk. He had a violin in there and a large desktop computer. I had never seen his closet but I assumed it had all his clothes and probably a set of scrubs plus all the tools you might need for surgery or something. He also had a T.V in there. Combeferre's was similar but with a Cello and his closet was probably full of books. Grantaire's, and I knew this for a fact, had boy band posters plastered all over one wall, and his own paintings of everyone and everything on the other. There was a desk and T.V as well. There used to be a stash of alcohol in his closet, but we took it out after the intervention. Courfeyrac's was probably the most sentimental room ever. There were about 4 bulletin boards filled with just pictures of us. He too had drawings of us, but they were odd to say the least. In a few, our band was playing, in space. In another, Eponine, Marius, me and Cosette, were all wearing medical scrubs and Joly had a white lab coat. I'd go into more detail, but that'd freak you out. But the coolest thing about him, were the poetry books. He had his own, homemade bookshelf that he had made in shop class, and was filled with Poetry books. He was the one who started calling me Apollo and the marble man. But there was a large, blow up photo of all of us, every person in our group, on the wall opposite his bed, above his desk. He preferred watching T.V with us. Anyway, they came out and smiled at Gavrohe and Eponine, who had dropped everything they had been carrying in awe of our apartment. I chuckled.

"Sorry, we probably should have told you." Joly smiled and apologized, clearly trying to hold in laughter.

"That you guys are living like kings, yeah maybe!" Eponine said as she looked around."Courf, how much money does your father even have anyway?!" Courfeyrac thought for a moment. Before i tell you what he said, I can't really remember the number, but it was a few craploads.

"About thirteen craploads." He said. Eponine and Gavroche's jaws may as well have dropped to the floor.

"That's what we did too!" Grnatiare exclaimed."Anyway, we have two spare bedrooms, so you guys can use those unless you wanna all sleep in the same room?" The two looked at each other and seemed to have a silent conversation. Eventually Gavroche shrugged.

"We'll split up." Eponine explained. We nodded.

"Alrighty then, I'll get to work on Dinner." Combeferre headed towards the kitchen and I saw Eponine follow him he stopped, she stopped, he took a step, she took a step. he turned to face her.

"Uhh... what are you doing?" He asked her.

"Coming to help with dinner, duh." She looked at him like he was stupid. Combeferre looked at her.

"No, you're our guests, you guys don't have to do anything, really." He assured her. Eponine blinked and there was an odd silence.

"Really?"

"No, he's totally fooling you, yes really!" Courfeyrac smiled and lead her over to the living room as Grantaire went to help Combeferre, and try once again to undo the duct tape. "Come on, why don't we all play on the Wii U or something." He sat her and Gavroche down. They looked at each other again.

"Ummmmm, what's a Wii U?" Gavroche asked.

"Did he just-"

"Oh my god he did."

"Gav...you've played video games before, right?" Courfeyrac knelt to his level. Gavroche shook his head. Well, this explained a lot. No wonder he was so smart, no video games to distract him. He looked to eponine and she also shook her head. We all looked at each other.

"Emergency, emergency! These two have never played a video game!" Courfeyrac ran around yelling. Gavroche and Eponine were soon on the floor, laughing. We helped them up after the laughing fit and set up the console. We pushed in guitar hero and gave Eponine the guitar and Sat Gavroche down on the drum set. We explained the game and began as soon as it started. Within three songs, they were hooked. For an hour and a half we played multiple games, the classic ones like legend of zelda, super mario brothers, Kirby, all that good stuff.

"Dinner's ready everyone." Combeferre called. We put down the controllers and shut it off, much to the sibling's disappointment, then they came to the table. Combefere had made a few steaks out on the barbeque, he must have slipped out when we were playing. There were potatoes and gravy, and much to our disgust, asparagus. Leave it to Ferre to make us eat healthy stuff. We all sat down. "Who'd like to say grace? Gavroche, Eponine?" He looked to them. I looked over and saw the pair looking at each other.

"Um we...don't say grace at home." Eponine scratched her cheek awkwardly.

"Oh, do you two have a different religion?" Grantaire asked. They shook their heads. Our eyes widened again. Pretty much everyone at school had some sort of religion. But as I thought about it, the pair never seemed to recognize a religion. Combeferre snapped out of it and told them what they needed to do. We said grace before digging in. Eponine and Gavroche ate ravenously, like they hadn't eaten in weeks. Even the asparagus. A ten year old boy, was eating, asparagus. It then occurred to me that I had never seen Eponine's parents at any of the school performances. Gavroche had always come by himself. I wondered what their house was like. I pushed that thought aside and focused on my food. When everyone was done we thanked Combeferre and Grantaire before moving to the couch and trying to decide on a movie. I wanted to watch Harry potter, it translated so well into politics. Combeferre wanted to watch finding nemo. He was a closet nostalgia fan. Courfeyrac agreed with him on that. Eponine kept trying to look for singing in the rain, much to her disappointment, we didn't have it. Joly and Grantaire both wanted to watch Percy Jackson. I looked to Gavroche, ho was being unusually quiet.

"Hey, guys, shut up!" I called out. They stopped talking and looked at me. I motioned towards Gavroche with my eyes and they understood."What do you want to watch?" I asked him. He looked around him, behind him, then pointed at himself. I chuckled and poked him."Yes you. Come on, we have a lot to choose from." He jumped off the couch and ran to the case. We chuckled and waited for him to pick. Eventually he decided on one we did not see coming. RENT. It was one of Joly's favourite's. Eponine grinned and looked at us, seeing our confused expressions.

"When we went to our first movie, we mistook the theatre for Rent as the theatre for Toy story three. WE both loved it, but we haven't seen it in a while." Gavroche nodded.

"Yeah! I used to think it was gross, but now it's really nice. Plus, there are people like Grantaire in it." I looked to Grantaire, smirking at his face he had whenever he was touched.

"Aww, you are the nicest kid, you know that?"

"Yes." We all laughed at that. We put the DVD in the slot and watched it.

~2 hours later~

I'm not crying, you're crying. I was in tears, as was everyone else. Even tough old me and Grantaire were practically sobbing at the last few shots of Angel and the others.

"Waaah! Mimi!" Joly blew his nose. We all smiled a little and shut off the T.V. Grantaire was still wailing over Angel. Courfeyrac was silently crying. Eponine was sobbing into hi shoulder Combeferre stood up and picked up Gavroche, who had fallen asleep during What you own. He was the strongest of us, he had barely shed a tear the whole time.

"Well. *sniff* That was utterly beautiful and heart breaking. I will see you all in the morning." He walked to one spare room and then to his own, Gavroche obviously in the bed. We all stood one by one. Only Eponine and I were left. She sniffled and hugged me.

"Night." She turned away and waked to her room.

"Eponine, wait!"

"Yes?" I paused. I could say something, anything I wanted to. I could ask her about the scars, what was going on, what her life at home was like, anything. Instead I chickened out and said:

"Good night." I walked towards my room and shut my door. My room was plain. It had a red and black bed. A desk. A T.V. And a few bulletin boards. One was one of Courfeyrac's old ones. Lots of pictures of me and my friends. The other two were plastered with newspaper articles. I wanted to be a political activist if my music career didn't work out. I banged my head on the wall. Good night, that's it. Pathetic. I sighed and climbed into my bed. I settled down for a good sleep. Little did I know that I would be learning something later that night.

* * *

I was awakened by two sounds, one was a shrill scream, the other was running footsteps. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and made my way to where the scream had sounded from. I saw someone fly through the door of the spare room Gavroche was in. I walked to the doorway and stopped beside it. I had seen someone go in, and I heard crying.

"You, you were d-dying. I was dying, you we-were all-"

"Ssh, ssh, it's okay Gav, it's okay, it was just a dream. I'm right here." I stiffened, Eponine. I waited, still listening.

"He, he was killing you all. " I heard a hiccup.

"Don't worry, I won't let anyone hurt you, I promise." A pause and the sobbing turned to sniffles. "Want a song?"

"Yes please." What I heard next was beautiful. It took all I had not to cry at the melody of the song we had heard earlier that night.

 _Look I find some of what you teach suspect, because I'm used to relying on intellect. But I try to open up to what I don't know. Because reason says I should've died, three years ago._

 _There's only us, there's only this. Forget Regret, or life is yours to miss._

 _No other road, no other way, no day but today._

Just like that, the song ended. I heard light snoring and I stood in the doorway to see Eponine putting Garoche back into the bed. She found a pillow and slipped it into his grasp. I smiled as she turned around, not even jumping. She pulled me out into the hallway.

"What were you doing there, never mind that, how much did you hear?"

"I saw you go in." I shrugged. I saw she was crying. I frowned and hugged her.

"What are you-"

"You don't have to tell me, just please, try not to get hurt any more. Please, if not for me, for Gavroche." I implored her.

"I'll try, I promise."

"Thank you."

* * *

 **Longest chapter yet, and most descriptive. Please R and R.**


	5. Chapter 5

Enjolras's P.O.V

"Thank you." There was an odd silence afterwards. Eponine looked ready to break away, but then she did something that would never be okay in my book, she stared to cry."Hey, hey, shh, shh sh." I comforted her. I hated this, seeing her in such a sorry state. I wanted her to be happy, and hot headed and temperamental, not sobbing into me. I didn't want her knees to be shaking. I didn't want to feel her trembling in my arms. But I had to be there for her, no matter how she was."It's okay, it's okay, everything is going to be okay."

"No, no it's not." She mumbled. I didn't ask her for more, not wanting to send her into more , Enj?" I hummed a response."Can I sleep with you tonight, I don't wanna be alone." I blushde a little, but it was hidden thanks to the darkness.

"Sure." I lead her into my room and we laid down, well I lay on top of the covers and her under. I wrapped my arms around her and stroked her hair until she fell asleep. I smiled to myself as her breathing became even with sleep. I closed my eyes and darkness descended upon me.

"Should we wake them up?"

"No way, take a picture for blackmail first."

"Been there done that."

""Sshh, you'll wake them."

"You don't think you'll get sick do you? I mean, sleeping together, even without the unmentionable, it's like a disease highway."

"You worry too much, their them, when have they gotten sick in the whole time we've known them?"

"Fair enough."I struggled to get my eyes open as I listened to the conversation. I opened them to 5 looming faces. I bit back a shout as I realized my arms were still around Eponine. I shot them a glare and they all smiled. All of them had very, interesting do's. I sighed. I felt Eponine stirring and I smiled at her.

"Morning sleepy face." I teased her.

"Shud up." She muttered. I chuckled and let go, sitting up in the bed. I patted down my probably outrageously messy hair and got out, leaving Eponine to sleep more. Luckily it's saturday so we have more than enough time. Courfeyrac walked to the kitchen and began making his heavenly pancakes. It's about the only thing he can cook without burning or ruining it somehow. I sat down with Gavroche at the table.

"Morning bud."

"Morning. Sleep well?" He asked, drinking orange juice. I nodded and asked him the same thing."Yep." I knew he was lying. I was there. I decided not to bring it up. "Hey Enjolras."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for letting us stay over. That's actually the best night we've had, ever. It was a great first sleep over." I looked at him.

"Wait, neither of you have ever had a sleep over?"

"Nope, they'd never let us." He replied. I looked at him. Never played a video game before, scary smart, too big space invade pj's, never had a sleep over. It then occurred to me that the pair of Thenadrier's might have never had a childhood. I frowned at that, then remembered, I didn't either. I really was in no place to feel sorry for them, when I barely knew what true childhood was like. I heard a yawn and saw Eponine come out of my room."Morning Eppy!" Gavroche went up to her and hugged his sister. She smiled and hugged back.

"No more terrors last night?"

"Nope, I scared em all away." He grinned. I chuckled.

"Morning Eponine."

"Mornin Enj, hey thanks for.. you know, last night." I blushed again and scratched my cheek.

"Not a problem."

"What happened last night?" Gavroche asked. WE didn't answer."What happened last night?" We tried to avoid it, and even him, but for a half hour he would follow one of us around, repeating the question. Luckily Courfeyrac was nearly finished his pancakes and I escaped to help him with the condiments.

"What happened last night?" He asked.

"Ugggggggghhhhhhhhh." I groaned. I looked up and he was still smirking from ear to ear."Eponine just needed someone to be with and she didn't want to disrupt the rest of you, and besides, she's my best friend." I explained.

"And you aren't telling Gavroche because?"

"Because I don't want him to feel guilty for not being there. You know how protective he is of her. He literally said he'd gut us if we hurt her the day he got here, remember?" We chuckled at the memory. The pancake he was working on was finally done.

"Breakfast is ready everyone!" He called. We all grinned and ran to the table. We quickly said grace before digging into the heaven that is Courfeyrac's pancakes.

* * *

Monday was a very important day that week. The reason being that it was our first day of rehearsal. I had never been in a play before, so it was nerve wracking. What would happen, how much would people judge you? Questions like these imposed themselves on my brain. I soon reached the doors that lead into the large auditorium. There was a poster of the play on the door, showing the words, Rehearsal underneath. I took a deep breath and walked in, taking in the scene. The auditorium was about 4 times the size of our penthouse apartment. The seats were like actual theatre seats and there were about 400 of them. The stage was big enough to be on broadway. I smiled and took it in before heading down the aisle to see the rest of the cast.

"Enj, over here!" Eponine called. I smiled and headed over. Our director, Mr,Valjean, was calling us all together so we could learn each others names if we didn't already know before doing our read through. The name game went fine. The read through was fun and efficient enough. I cringed at the first few lines that Fiyero had. Eponine was great. Everyone was, and then it was over. I was a little disappointed at how quick it went, but I was looking forward to the rest of it.

* * *

 **Hey guys, sorry for the late update and how short it is. :( I have major writers block, so if you could put some suggestions below, that'd be great.**


	6. Chapter 6

Eponine's P.O.V

After rehearsal I walked home with Gavroche at my side once again. He had waited for the rest of us since he was too scared to walk home alone. I held his hand as we entered the bustling pub. Luckily it was happy hour which meant the pub was filled with people, lots of people to keep our parents busy. I sighed in relief and we headed upstairs once again. Or tried to rather. Well, Gavroche was able to make it up in time before,

"Eponine, get down here!" I heard dad's bellowing voice. I sighed and came down the stairs.

"Yes?" I asked, trying to not sound 'ungrateful'.

"I believe you know this fine gentleman?" He pointed to the boy at his side. Oh yeah, I knew him. That 'fine gentleman' was none other than our school's bully, Montparnasse. He gave at least 1 wedgie a day. Joly and Feuilly had unfortunately been on the receiving end of a few. Combeferre had come close, but was able to lose him. Marius had been the receiver of many. At the time he had unknowingly broken my heart so I had thanked Montparnasse. So apparently he thought I owed him and had tried to 'cash in' several times.

"Yeah, I know 'im." I replied, trying desperately to not make a snide remark. Dad seemed to brighten at this.

"Lovely, because you're keeping him company tonight." He smirked before walking away to briefly cheat on mom. I paled and looked at Montparnasse, who was licking his lips. Unfortunately, it was that time where everyone in high school just haad to have sex with someone. And Montparnasse was known also for being resident heart breaker. I gulped. It was going to be a very, very, very long night.

* * *

Later that night, after Montparnasse had gone home, thankfully unsatisfied, Mom and Dad were far too drunk to care about his words. So I was safe for that night. Even when I came up to our room, Gavroche looked at the door, saw me standing there happy and semi healthy, he cheered and danced around the room. I chuckled and danced around with him. Soon it grew darker and we settled down for bed. I had the first uninterrupted sleep in a while as Gav slept soundly with no night terrors. I smiled as I felt the darkness close in.

* * *

The next morning Mom and Dad were too hung over to notice anything and were still in bed, so I took a risk and grabbed some money and Mom's credit card from her purse before leaving. I would keep this little trinket and leave her one of the ones from the many wallets they had stolen the night before. I grinned at my brilliance as I lead Gavroche out the door, making sure I closed it as quietly as humanly possible. We made it to the corner of the street, where we were slightly surprised. Enjolras and Grantaire were there, and both were holding two drinks each. We walked up to them. They each handed us a drink in another hand.

"Carmel latte for Eponine." Enjolras handed e the warm drink and I cautiously accepted it. I sniffed it and it seemed normal enough, no gunpowder.

"And hot chocolate with whipped cream for Gavroche." Grantaire handed the other over to my brother. He took it eagerly and sipped it, giving himself a purposeful whipped cream mustache. I narrowed my eyes at them.

"Okay what did you two do now?" They looked at each other and laughed sheepishly. This can't be good. I was right as Grantaire turned to me to explain.

"Weeellll, we sort of took Combeferre's glasses." He held up the square shaped spectacles. I facepalmed with one hand and held my drink with the other.

"Pleeeaaase don't rat us out." Enjolras begged me. Gavroche gave him a thumbs up.

"You got it dude."

"Hey, what have I told you about immitating Michelle?"

"That she's a bad influence and I shouldn't." He looked up at me, still with a whipped cream mustache that was making it hard to focus.

"That's right." I wiped off the cream and stuck it in my own mouth.

"ENJOLRAS! GRANTAIRE!" I heard Combeferre's angry angry voice, a tone he rarely used, that scared me a little, okay so much I nearly peed myself. I looked up the street and saw poor Joly covering his ears and taking Ferre by the hand. I burst out laughing at the sight as Grantaire and Enjolras hid behind me. I rolled my eyes. I looked at them, smirking.

"Don't you dare." Grantaire pointed at me. I only smirked and turned around.

"OVER HERE GUYS, THEY'RE OVER HERE!"

"We officially hate you." Grantaire said dejectedly. Enjolras looked at him.

"Hey, who said it was official, she still likes me more than you." Enjolras smirked and I rolled my eyes, even if it was absolutely, positively, and certainly true.

"Yeaaah, liiiiikes." He smirked back. I blushed as the two started brawling like they were in Fairy tail. What, I like to watch anime when I can. Combeferre marched up to them with Joly's help, soon joining the brawl and retrieving his stolen glasses. Meanwhile the rest of us were laughing our asses off. When they were finally finished, they didn't look to bad, certainly not as bad as I do during dad's rages. I pushed the thought away and helped them up.

"Much better." Combeferre smiled as we walked.

"For you maybe." Grantaire mumbled. I chuckled and smiled as we arrived at the school. I had my arms around Joly and Enjolra's necks and felt as though I could lift a mountain. Gavroche ran up to the others and told them excitedly what had happened, and soon they were on the ground laughing the same way we had. I smiled and helped up the others. My happiness didn't last long.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't losers, weaklings, brat, blonde, and slut." He spat at us. I glared at him, and I'm pretty sure the rest of us did too.

"What do you want Montparnasse?" I spat back.

"Simple, what I came for last night." I paled and my eyes widened in fear.

"Eponine, Eponine, what's he talking about?" Enjolras looked at me. I gulped and opened my mouth to say something, anything.

"You mean she didn't tell you, they don't know?" At this point Courfeyrac had his hands over Gav's ears, sure that a stream of curse words were soon to come. I looked at him. I pleaded with my eyes not to tell them, but he didn't listen as he cackled."Oh this is priceless. HA HA HA HA!" He smirked at the others."You mean that they don't know that you were practically sold to me last night? Or that you actually thanked me for hanging Pontmercy by his underwear?" I looked at Marius and Cosette, who looked shocked. Then Marius shrugged. The others had told him what had been going on and had promptly beaten him out of his obliviousness.

"To be fair I sort of deserved it." He tried helping. Apparently he was still oblivious and hadn't heard the 'practically sold to him' part. The others seemed to have though and were glaring at Montparnasse. Suddenly I couldn't stand it. I would not let my friends find out about me, they'd leave us. And Gavroche didn't deserve that, me, maybe. I gritted my teeth, marched up to Montparnasse, and punched him in the face. I heard a satisfying crack and continued to punch him in various other places(*cough cough* balls *cough*). Unfortunately he soon started fighting back. And unfortunately for me he knew where Dad normally hit, and took advantage of it. After all he gave me a few scars from a few weeks ago. I tried to keep myself from crying out as he quickly over powered me.

"And one more for the road!" I braced myself for pain to come, but it didn't happen. I looked up from my cowering to see Enjolras holding his fist. He had broken through the crowd that had started to gather at the sight of a fight. I was probably covered in new bruises but I was too in shock to care.

"Leave. Her. Alone." He said scarily. Montparnasse looked at him. Fear was evident in his eyes but he still smirked.

"Or what, you and your dork friends'll sing about it?" At that he was surrounded by the others. After that, he was in the same place as me, on the ground, getting his ass beaten. Even Gavroche was adding in kicks and punches. I soon heard the same words he had used on me.

"And one more for the road." Cosette kicked him in the crotch. I felt satisfied as Combeferre and Courfeyrac helped me up.

"Thanks." I said quietly.

"Don't mention it." They muttered to me. After Montparnasse limped away, the others came up to me. Enjolras was ahead of them and ran up to me.

"Eponine, are you alright?"

"Y-yeah." I nodded. I tried to take a step towards him and fell instead.

"I'll take that as a 'No, I'm lying, I'm most certainly not fine.' " He joked a little. I chuckled, then winced. Joly and Enjolras helped me over to a bench. I gratefully sat down on the rubbery seat and tried not to wince. Joly rolled up my pant legs- oh freakin crap, he would see.

"NO!" I hit his hand and he shook it in pain.

"Oww, what was that for?!"

"I-I, I don't like people seeing my legs, they're hairy and gross." I lied. Joly raised an eyebrow.

"Your legs looked fine on Saturday." Shit.

"Oh, they just- you see I-"

"Ep, please, let the man see, you took a beating." Marius implored me. I sighed and rolled up my leg. I saw their eyes widen as they laid eyes on the many bruises. I glared at them,

"What, I just bruise easily, it's fine." I lied again. Joly snapped out of his state of shock and went to tending to it. I sighed as the others took off for classes or stopped looking like they're eyes were the size of my laptop. Soon Joly had me mostly fixed up and Enjolras was helping me into L.A. "Come on Enjy, I'm fine." I protested as he was close to carrying me. Scratch that, now he was. I was now on his back, riding him as though we had turned into Courf and Gav. I shrugged. Why not take advantage."Onwards horsey, to the barricade!"

"What barricade?"

"Lost in the moment, don't ruin it, chaarrge!" I called as he ran towards our english class. I laughed the whole way and so did he. The day was young, and so were we. Little did I know that the day would bring many more surprises.


	7. Chapter 7

**Here's a fluffy chapter for y'all**

Eponine's P.O.V

Enjolras sat me down in my seat and grinned as he took the one beside me. While this was one of the few classes we had together, with only the two of us, it was still one of our least favourites. Because of our Teacher, Javert. Unless they demanded it, we didn't call our teachers mister or miss. Luckily Javert didn't want us to do much. But he was harsh in punishments. And he seemed to have it out for the les amis. And he apparently had a personal vendetta against Valjean, so when show time came around, you bet your sweet sweet ass that there'd be homework. We turned to the black board, where Javert was luckily just coming in. We sighed in relief, he hadn't seen us come in the way we did.

"Good morning all, so today, let's pick up from last class..." He kept going and going. When his back was turned I turned to Enolras. I smiled and tapped his shoulder. He looked up from his book towards me and almost choked. I was doing my best impression of Javert, flapping my lips up and down, puckered up and scrunching my nose, my brown eyes narrowed. I smirked as Enjolras held his hand over his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. Eventually my fun ended and he got a hold of himself. Javert went into a loooooong booooooooooring lesson about ballads and I decided to pass a little message along to Enjolras.

 _Shoot me now or shoot me later, just do it before class is over._

I passed the note inconspicuously under the desk to Enjolras. I soon saw a piece of paper land on my desk.

 _Why shoot such a pretty face?_

I blushed a little at this, but smiled and replied.

 _You flatter me Enj, but don't lie_

 ** _I'm not lying, you are pretty_**

 _Sure. Whatever you say_

 ** _I mean it._**

 _Really?_

 ** _Yeah. And smart, and funny, and stubborn, and spunky, and cute. :)_**

 _Okay, who are you and what have you done with Enjolras?_

 ** _I'm serious, you are one of the most amazing women I have ever met. Granted that isn't many, but still._**

I chuckled at this. The bell rang and we walked out together. I sighed and put my arm over him.

"This is nice, just the two of us, none of our friends to be them, no people to ruin our conversations with snogging." I smiled as we entered AP music. Combeferre and Feuilly were there, so we wouldn't need to worry about teasing, only our horrid teacher, Miss Elliot.

"Yes, it is. Hey, remember when you and I would sneak out every second friday of the month?" He remembered. I smiled, remembering when we nearly got caught.

"Yeah, we should do that again some time."

"Let's do it."

"What?"

"Let's do it, let's skip, let's run around town like wild teens and have fun for a day." He spread his arms. He didn't even wait for my answer as he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.

"Enjolras, what are you doing?!" I pounded on his back. He didn't listen as he ran to the window. Luckily we were on the ground floor.

"Enjolras, Eponine, what do you think you-" Elliot started to come towards us but Enjolras cut her off.

"So Long Elliot, we have places to be, lives to live, fun to have, good bye!" He jumped out the open window, me squealing in delight and terror as he raced down the hill. I smiled as we were now out of sight. Enjolras let me down and panted.

"That, was the stupidest thing, you have ever done, and you once made a barricade at ikea." I remarked. He fell over, laughing at the memory.

"I wanted to reenact Les Devastes, it was fun. Remember when Gavroche complied by pretending to be the army and soon there was a Nerf war?" He smiled. I did too as I remembered, Gav had come over and had been shot shortly after me, Marius was the only one to 'survive' and then ran off to find Cosette in the office department. Enjolras had promptly lifted a towel, saying it was the french flag, as his character he was imitating had done so in the movie, and was shot so many times he had bruises, Grantaire had joined him. I had even sung the tiny platter of dew song when I 'died'

"Yeah, that was fun." I nodded."So, what are we gonna do?"

"We should go to the fountain." He smiled. There was a large fountain in the town square of the flower scene in Alice in Wonderland. Either way it was giant and basically had a pool around it, with the statue/fountain in the middle. I nodded and we ran to it, whilst I rode upon Enjolras's back.

"ONWARDS!" I yelled. The rest of the day was filled with a lot of fun. We swam around in the flower fountain pool and generally had fun. When someone asked if we were supposed to be in school, I had only replied with

"Yolo." I shrugged. She had smiled and walked away and Enjolras had burst out laughing for the third time that day. I had never seen him so happy except when working on a rally or song. The day was fun, but we had to head back eventually. So we did and made it back in time for lunch. Gavroche and the others only looked at us before shrugging, they had been at the great Nerf barricade, they had seen stranger things. I only smiled as we sat back down.

"So, what's for lunch?" Enjolras broke the ice.

* * *

I grinned as we walked out of school. We had been lucky enough that Elliot was too stressed to report us to the principal, so other than by those who had been in the classroom, our little escapade had been a secret, which of course meant getting our ears chewed off by Combeferre and Joly.

"Could have gotten a cold from the fountain-"

"Might have been suspended-"

"Seriously hurt-"

"Or expelled-"

"Possible rat bites-"

"Had us worried sick-"

"Or fish bites-"

"After we specifically told you to take it easy-"

"You ought to have been here-"

"You took a beating-"

"And you almost got in trouble again-

"Could have been arrested-"

"Or could've met poisonous leeches-"

"Long story short-"

"DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!" They both yelled. We both looked at each other and promptly started giggling.

"Lighten up you two, you look like Missus weasely." I told them. Enjolras nodded.

"Honestly, calm down before you pop a blood vessel." At this Joly started going into one of his worrying fits and Combeferre had to calm him down. Sometimes I wondered if they would make a good couple. I sighed. "Guys it's fine, we dried off and we stopped at our place and got some clothes."

"So is that why she's wearing my 1D t-shirt?" Grantaire asked. I blushed a little. Even Grantaire's shirt, who was nearly twice my size, was tighter than what I normally wore. Gavroche seemed to notice this because he was looking at me, asking a silent question. I shook my head no and he relaxed a little, but it seemed that he was disappointed. I put that off to the side for later and focused on Enjolras, who was still talking.

"-you have the most girly clothes out of us, no offense."

"None taken, I take pride in it." He puffed out his chest and I giggled. I smiled to myself as lunch passed by without much more happening. Joly had guilt tripped us into letting him make sure we weren't getting sick. He raised an eyebrow at me when mine was a little higher than normal but I shrugged and told him we had dropped at a coffee shop for hot chocolate. It was rubbish of course, but nobody else heard as they were lost in conversation land. Joly hadn't really bought it, but figured it'd be best to check later. I sighed. I had already had two close scrapes with someone seeing my scars, first the fight with Montparnasse, then my shirt clinging to me in the fountain. I had sold the idea that they were creases to Enjolras, but he had been having too much fun to care. Now if Joly decided to check for anything else...I was having way too many close calls today. Luckily it was only two classes after lunch until rehearsal and that meant two classes of near solitude. Art was next, so I could continue my painting in peace. Now that I thought about it, my dream was similar to Les devastes. I shrugged and made my way to the eisel. I had decided to do a few paintings of it and was starting on one scene that was my personal favourite. It was simply our group inside a pub, still in the same clothes, still us. I smiled. I would have to give these to someone eventually. Dad didn't like having anything we made in the house. Even our acceptance letters had been used as fire fuel after they were of no use. I frowned but pushed it away. I focused on the painting and making it as life like as the last.

* * *

A few hours later I sat on a prop bench as Joly took his medical look at me. Luckily he hadn't looked anywhere other than my face and wrists. Pulse or something. His thermometer once again sat under my tongue and was starting to get very uncomfortable. But soon Joly pulled his tool out and looked at it. His eyes widened and I bit my lip.

"Well?" I prompted him. He didn't speak, only looked at the white stick in surprise and shock. I tapped his hand. He jumped.

"Eponine, you have a temperature of 190 degrees fahrenheit!"He informed me. I felt my eyes widen, and now that he mentioned it, I felt like I was a boiling lobster in hawaii. Apparently Valjean had picked the worse time to come check on us and heard Joly's 'diagnosis.'

"What? Eponine, why are you here, you should be at home, resting." Oh no, oh no, quick think of an excuse.

"Um, I would, but Dad's out on a business trip and has the only key." Phew.

"Okay, in that case, you go on over and use the bed we're using for scene 14."(Popular song scene) I nodded and stumbled over to the bed. I tripped over a cord on the way over and braced myself for impact, for the second time that day, and once again, it never came.

"Easy there Thenadrier, don't wanna hurt yourself." I sighed. Of course it was him, it was always him. Enjolras helped me over to the bed and laid me down."Let me know if you need anything okay, Joly's gonna bring over a cloth for your forehead." I nodded and muttered a thanks as he walked away."Don't mention it." He smiled and went over to Cosette and Marius, where they were running lines for Dancing Through Life. Joly came over with a rag and a bowl of cold water. And thank the higher deity if there be one, he brought cold medicine. He wrung out the wet cloth and placed it on my forehead. 'i instantly felt more comfortable. He seemed to noticed and smiled.

"Come on, in you get." He lifted up the covers and pulled them up to my shoulders. I smiled at how nice my friends were being about this.

"You'd make a great doctor, you know that?" I told him, feeling somewhat giddy. He smiled.

"I'd like to think so, thanks." He poured some of the probably horrid tasting medicine into a small cup. "Come on, drink it." He held it near me. I pulled the covers over my head and shook my head no. I could practically hear him roll his eyes."Do you want to miss rehearsal?" He prompted me. I still refused to come out. "Eponine, how do you think your dad would react to this, angry, or annoyed?" That got me up and scared. I pulled down the covers and looked at him.

"How long have you known?"

"Since Cosette and I looked at your back after you fainted." He out down the cup and crossed his arms."Come on, you show a lot of the signs, and that confirmed it. Also, you just confirmed it." Crap, he had me there. "Come on Ponine, you think i don't read about mental health as well as physical, I'm a hypochondriac. I know more than I probably want to. And I know the real reason you don't want to go home." I felt gloomy and sick so I only looked down as a response, unwilling to look him in the eye."I won't tell anyone, I promise, but Gavroche knows I know too, and I think Cosette-"

"She already knew." I interrupted. He sighed.

"Look, I won't spill about it, and you don't want to go home, so I'll say it again," He held out the foul smelling liquid. "Drink it." His eyes were soft and kind. Trust worthy. And besides, this was Joly, he could keep a secret. I sighed and took the cup from him. "Come on, bottoms up." He prompted. I rolled my eyes and downed it in one go. I saw him wince as I did so, and soon found out why. I began coughing and wheezing."Sorry, that's my fault, I should have told you to sip it." He chuckled and took the cup from me and filled it again. "Here, you need two anyway with your fever." I took the cup and sipped it slowly this time. Joly was called over for something and promised me he'd be back later. I sighed. Joly knew. I told myself it'd be fine. He wouldn't spill, he promised me. Eventually I put those thoughts to rest and let darkness envelop me.

* * *

Enjolras's P.O.V

I went over to the bed Eponine was in and took the vacant chair beside it. I replaced the cloth on her head and just looked upon her for a bit. She was stunning. Even when sick she was beautiful. Her hair cascaded down her shoulders and onto the bed. Her sparkling chocolate brown eyes were hidden beneath makeup-less eyelids. Her slender fingers poked out above the blankets. Little tiny freckles danced across her nose. I smiled to myself as I took it all in. She was amazing. It was official, I was in love with Eponine Marlene Thendarier.

* * *

Some time later, Marius sat down across from me and frowned.

"She's not looking to good, is she?" I sighed, inally able to see just how bad she was. She was pale and flushed at the same time, and beads of sweat dotted her forehead. I nodded in response to Marius's statement."Do you think she'll be okay, she's never been this sick before...Enjolras, look." I looked down. Eponine had pushed down the covers in her sleep. Her sweat shirt had been pulled around her, showing her, ahem, unmentionables, and her ribs. .One. My eyes widened. How little had she been eating? Had Gavroche? Why was she so thin? Then It came to me. My brain put the pieces together. Brushing off crazy bruises as something minor, not eating nearly enough, over protectiveness of each other, baggy clothes, her parents never coming to her shows, no religion after being alive for 16 years, and lastly, that incident with her back, and with montparnasse, he had quickly been close to winning, and had kicked and punched only in certain places. It all made sense. It all came together as one horrible picture. Eponine and Gavroche came from the same kind of life i did. Eponine and Gavroche were victims of abuse.


	8. Chapter 8

Enjolras's P.O.V

I gulped and pulled the covers back up to her shoulders, trying not to brush anything. I looked at Marius and grimaced."What's been going on in that home of hers? He wondered aloud. I knew, but I couldn't say. We sat there in silence before he wandered off to do something or other. I looked down at my sickly friend and tried to think of an excuse to keep her away from home as long as possible. There was no way she would be able to go to school tomorrow, sure she'd try, but it wouldn't last long before a teacher sent her home. I looked to Combeferre, who was practicing his own song.

"Say Ferre, since Eponine's dad is... on a business trip, would it be okay if Eponine and Gavroche stayed with us again?" I asked. Combeferre was sort of our father figure in the group, the one who comforted us and helped us, and was the most level headed. Therefore, he made the decisions in the house. He thought about it for a moment.

"Sure, and Joly can take care of her until she feels better. Plus, more than three people telling her to stay home may actually work better." He said with a knowing glance towards our girl. I smiled at him in thanks.

"You're the best." I told him and playfully punched him

"I know, now if she's coming I'll let Courfeyrac know that Gavroche will come too." I nodded. Unless it had to do with class, the two siblings hated leaving each other out of each other's sight. Wherever Eponine went, Gavroche came and vise versa. I walked back to Eponine and thought about waking her, as rehearsal was about to end. I was about to tap her and wake her up, when I realized how peaceful she looked. Now that I thought about it, I had never seen her without her guard up, save the occasional time with Marius. I smiled to myself, softly pushed back the covers, slipped my arms underneath her knees and arms, and lifted her up. I heard a few wolf whistles but I ignored them as I walked carefully down the stage stairs and out to the parking lot.

* * *

I was pacing around my room. I hadn't told anyone about this. That I knew what hell Eponine and Gavroche were going through. What had been going on? What if they were starving, or being whipped? What if Gavroche came to school one day with a black eye? Or Eponine came with a broken arm? Or worse, what if they never came back? I paled at that disturbing notion and shook it away. I couldn't keep this to myself, but I couldn't tell anyone, Eponine would never forgive me kill me. Then I thought of it, I just needed to tell someone who could keep a secret. I ran out of my room and to Joly's. I knocked on the door a few times with no answer.

"He's taking care of Eponine." Grantaire's voice came from the kitchen, where he was once again trying to strip away the thousands of layers of duct tape. He gave up and stomped to the couch. I rolled my eyes as he pouted. Gavroche and Courfeyrac were playing on the Wii U. This time it was The legend of Zelda. I smiled to myself. At least Gavroche was mostly okay. I remembered why I had come out of my room and walked over to the spare room Eponine was residing in. It was the same room she had left unused that night when they slept over. I knocked lightly on the door and it creaked open. Joly was at Eponine's side and his black medicine bag(yep, he had one, he actually had a black medicine bag) at his side.

"Joyl?" I spoke and he jumped. "Oh, sorry." I apologized and sat down on the other side of the bed. "Well, how is she?" I asked. He sat down on the other side.

"Her temperature went down for a bit and she's a lot less sweaty. But she's developed a bit of a cough and she's gotten less flushed, but paler. Also, I saw she hasn't been eating much." He grimaced.

"Joly, there's something I think might be happening...I think that Eponine came-"

"From the same sort of life that you did, I know. I've been suspecting it for a while and she sort of confirmed it a while ago." I blinked. Joly already knew? Well, that saved time. I sighed.

"What are we going to do?"

"We can't _do_ anything." He took out a bottle of medicine."For now, we have to hope that they'll be okay. But, I promise, we'll help her, eventually. But you know how she is, she'll refuse help as long as she can, until it's," He gulped, "Life or death." He sighed and put the bottle down. "She won't listen to reason, no matter how much she wish she did." He looked at me and I felt miserable. As much as I wanted to disagree with him, he was right. "Now come on, we should wake her, she needs her medicine." He patted my shoulder before tapping hers. "Wakey wakey Eppy." Eponine sluggishly opened her eyes.

"Mmm?" I chuckled and helped her sit up."I don wanna." She murmured, flopping onto my shoulder. I smiled and stroked her hair.

"Too bad, do you want to get better or not?" Joly replied sternly. That seemed to push her.

"Uggh, fine, give me that." She grabbed the bottle from Joly's hand and poured it into the cup. I chuckled in amusement. She was so independent, she was even trying to take care of herself when she was this sick. She sipped the purple liquid and made a face of utter disgust. I chuckled again. I looked to Joly and noticed he was looking exhausted. Of course, he had never taken care of someone this sick before. Only minor colds.

"You go take a break for a bit Jol, I'll take it from here." I told him. He nodded at me and left. I turned back to Eponine."Feeling any better?" She paused for a minute and shook her head. I grimaced as she began coughing violently. I soon realized she wasn't near stopping and I crawled up beside her, trying to help in any way I could. I felt helpless, the girl I loved was sitting here, hacking her brains out and trying not to die each night. Eventually she did finish and wiped off her mouth. I held her lightly, as if she were made of glass. "Are you okay?" I asked, then cursed myself, of course she wasn't.

"Yeah. Fine." She said raspily. I winced at the state of her usually melodic pipes. "I'm a little hungry though." She remarked. I almost smiled as I found a way to help.

"Wait here, I'll get some ginger ale and some soup, does that sound okay?" I asked and got down off the bed. She nodded.

"Yes please." She said in the same hoarse voice she had uttered earlier. I quietly closed the door and nearly ran into Gavroche as I turned around.

"WAH!" I exclaimed and took a few deep breaths."Wow, don't scare me like that Gav."

"There are people at the door." Was all he said before running back to the living room. I blinked and walked to the door and opened it. There stood Cosette and Marius. "Um, hi." I blinked. The two rarely ever visited our apartment, other than the occasional meeting we couldn't have in the cafe we used for meetings about protests, and parties."Oh, come in, come in." I opened the door wider, then remembered Eponine was here."Um, actually, it'd probably be better if you guys came another time, Eponine's staying with us while she gets better and she's like really, really sick."

"We know, that's why we dropped by, we just wanted to make sure she was okay." Cosette told me. I blinked, then smiled.

"I say yes, but maybe check with Joly if it's okay to go in." I said as I went over to the fridge. The pair nodded and made their way to Joly's room. I grabbed a can of Canada Dry and put some soup on the stove.

* * *

Joly's P.O.V

Isat on my bed, trying to fall asleep like Enjolras had told me, but my body was warring with my mind. I heard the door creak open and made a mental note to ask Grantaire to oil the hinges in this apartment. I looked up to see Marius and Cosette.

"Oh, hi guys, what can I do for you?" Marius looked to Cosette and she stepped towards me.

"Well, more so what you could do for me." She sat down and i shuffled over. Marius apparently had talked about this with Cosette and he stalked out of the room, closing the squeaky door behind him. "Jol, you know about Eponine and Gavroche, right?" I nodded grimly.

"Unfortunately, yes. How do you know, did you guess, like I did or-"

"I lived with them when I was little. Then Jean adopted me." I blinked. Didn't see that one coming. "I often witnessed Eponine being beaten for dropping something or doing something wrong, or back talking. It was horrible, I still have nightmares sometimes." She shuddered. I clapped her shoulder supportively.

"Hey, we'll figure something out, we'll help her out." I told her. She nodded.

"Yeah, you're right." She took a breath."Oh, there was another thing we wanted to ask you. Would it be alright for Marius and I to check up on Ponine, or is she contagious?" I remembered her symptoms that I had seen so far and decided that she might be, but probably wasn't, but would be better to not have someone other than disease immune Enjolras near her. For as long as I had known our marble man, he never got sick, his immune system was too tough.

"I'd say it'd be better if you didn't, besides, she's probably going to get herself sicker by trying to convince you two that she's fine. Sorry, doctors orders." I remarked. I had always wanted to say that. She sighed and nodded.

"Hypochondriac's orders." She sighed again." But, you're probably right. Thanks anyways." She got up to tell Marius. She stopped for a moment and walked back over, digging around in her purse. She brought out two small bottles, one I recognized as bruise cream, the other was a mystery."Here, don't do it while she's up obviously, but try to see if you can work on her back a little more." She held up the bottle I couldn't figure out."This is a little something I made that's good for...lashes." She said quietly. My eyes widened, Eponine had been whipped. She nodded at my unspoken question."Yeah, that happened, and judging by what her back looked like a while ago, she still gets them." She shuddered at a memory probably passing through."Anyway, I'll see you at school." She waved.

"I'll let her know you guys dropped by." I waved back. After I heard them leave, my body finally listened to my mind and let me fall asleep.

* * *

Enjolras's P.O.V

Cosette came out of Joly's room and talked to Marius for a second. They walked to the door and waved. They said something about a possibility that she was contagious. I brushed the idea off, Joly was probably just being his usual paranoid self. I poured the soup into a bowl and slipped in a few ice cubes before bringing it and the can of ginger ale to Eponine's room. I backed in through the partially open door and set the tray I had in my hands on the large night stand. It was more the size of a desk. Eponine had fallen asleep yet again, and I smiled. The soup could probably stand to cool for a little longer. I brushed away a stray strand of hair from her face an brought the covers up a little more. It was then that I noticed something, she was shaking. Her eyes were darting around in a hurried motion beneath her eyelids. I tried desperately to wake her and soon had to convert to shaking her.

"Eponine, wake up!" I shook her and her eyes snapped open, already starting to dew.

"En-Enjolras?" She felt my face, as if making sure I was real.

"I'm here, I'm right here." I hugged her. She collapsed into my arms and sobbed into my red hoodie. I rubbed small circles on her back until she was calm enough to eat. I handed her the tray and shhe instantly wolfed it down, chugging the ginger ale afterwords. I smiled, glad to see her fire back in her."Feeling better?"

"Much, thank you." She set the tray aside and yawned."I think It'd be..best..if...I..." She trailed off as she fell victim once again to sleep. I only grinned and kissed her forehead before leaving and closing the door. I smiled and turned around, being surprised for the second time that day as four faces stared at me.

"WAH!" I sighed and rubbed my temples."Twice in less than an hour, really?" I muttered. I looked at my friends and saw them all smirking."What?"

"You think she's gorgeous." Combeferre started.

"You wanna date her." Grantaire continued

"You wanna smooch her." Courfeyrac finished. The three older boys sang, while Gavroche supported a look of utter grossed outness mixed with the 'I will kill you if you lay a finger on my sister' look. I rolled my eyes.

"You guys need to stop watching ." I sighed and sat down on the couch.

"But Sandra Bullock is just so cuute." Courfeyrac smiled. I sighed."Come on man, you two are so obvious, you would make a great couple." Grantaire nodded.

"Totally, and you two have never had a relationship before, why not with each other?" He continued.

"Plus you both seem to need each other at the moment." Combeferre finished up. I looked at them.

"You guys really think I should ask her out?"

"YES!" They all yelled. I thought about it, then thought of all the possible, horrid outcomes.

"...No."

"UGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" They all groaned.

"What?"


	9. Chapter 9

Eponine's P.O.V

I awoke to see moonlight mixed with the pale glow of street lamps trickling through the translucent curtains on one side of the room while A sleeping figure was on the other. Enjolras. I felt less sick, so I had the strength to get up and drag him into the bed with me. His blonde curls that rested upon his head glistened with a light amount of water, still damp from an earlier shower. His serene crystal blue eyes were hidden beneath thin skin. His muscular arms were limply hanging at his sides in a peaceful manner. Light snores came from him and his breath bushed against my neck. I shuddered a little and laid him down beside me before pulling the covers over the both of us. It was after midnight when a thought entered my mind. How would dad react when we came home? What would he do to me? Oh god, what if he hurt Gavroche. That was something I could never bear to have happen, not when I was still breathing. But what if he got his gang to burn me again, what if he killed me? Before I knew it I was hyperventilating and rocking back and forth, I felt sweat falling down my face like a waterfall. Suddenly I had stopped rocking and felt something warm wrap itself around me.

"It's okay, it's okay. It's not your fault." I suddenly found myself sobbing into Enjolras and he was lightly stroking my hair, careful to not pull on it. I felt my usual emotionless walls melt away to nothingness as he held me in his arms. He kept saying something over and over again, not your fault. It was as if...

"JOLY I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!" I sobbed/yelled into Enjolras's chest. I felt his chest shake with slight laughter.

"He didn't tell me anything. I figured it out." He told me. I stiffened and looked up at him to see him frowning."Why do you stay there?" I scoffed.

"It's not that simple Enj, They'd split Gav and me up in the foster system, and I can't afford my own place." I listed out other horrid excuses and reasons. But the real reason was much harder to face. If we left, no matter where we went, they'd find us, and kill us. Even if it meant bearing the excruciating pain each night, I would keep my brother safe. But I couldn't tell Enjolras. He'd never understand, or believe me.

"Stay with us then." He offered. I looked up at him. "I mean it, stay here, where he can't get to you, we already have two extra rooms." This was worse, if we accepted his offer, then not only would dad kill us, but he'd go after Enjolras and the others, and that plus Gavroche was worse than four different hells.

"I'm sorry Enjolras, I can't."

"Why?!" He exclaimed."The treat you like dirt there, you barely get to eat, yes I saw your ribs, I'll explain later, you've been," He swallowed hard and his adams apple bobbed up and down. "Whipped." He ranted on and on, no longer holding me, but looking straight at me. I had stopped crying."THEY AREN'T HUMAN!" I paled at his raised voice and covered my ears, thanking higher beings that the others were heavy sleepers. I had figured that out when we had slept over. His tone reminded me of Dad's when he often beat me. I squeezed my eyes shut and curled into a ball.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I kept apologizing, my instincts telling me to brace myself for pain that would surely follow. I had been waiting for a while, and nothing came. I looked up at Enjolras, who had a mixture of pain and guilt on his face.

"Eponine, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Mmhat's 'oing n?" He was interrupted by a high voice from the door. My head snapped to it and saw Gavorche rubbing the sleep from his eyes, standing in the door. I softened and slowly walked over to him, still feeling a little weak, dropped to my knees and hugged him.

"Nothing Gav, just a little nightmare. Go back to sleep, okay?"

"Mmkay." He nodded and hugged me back before sleepily walking back to his room. I sighed and sat down by the closed door. I put my knees up to my face and rested my head on them. I felt another body land beside me and put an arm over me, pulling my body closer to them.

"I'm sorry." We said at the same time. I looked up at the blonde boy beside me and rested my head on his shoulder, my eyes downcast.

"What are you sorry for?" He asked me.

"For reacting like that. I know you didn't think it would happen."

"It's fine, I was being stupid, I should've rememb-" He put his hand on his mouth. I blinked and looked at him.

"What?"

"Nothing." He said, it being obvious he wouldn't be revealing it any time soon. I sighed."But still, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. You're not one of the boys, who can just have some sense slapped into them." I looked at him.

"Sorry, wrong word choice. Look, your different, you have walls up, you think you can handle things on your own-"

"I can handle things on my own." I protested.

"Let me finish, you think you can handle _everything_ on your own. But not everything can be done without help. There are some who choose solidarity, but none who can withstand it. You need to learn that we're here to help, all of us, you can't be by yourself forever." He rubbed my shoulder and I bit back tears at his words.

"That may take a while."

"We can wait."

* * *

After that he helped me back into bed and stayed until sleep welcomed me into its warm embrace. The next morning I woke to a delicious smell and sunlight pouring through the curtains.

"MORNING!" Gavroche yelled in my ear. I covered it.

"Gaaav, please never do that again." I begged. He smiled and I looked to the door, which was creaking open.

"Glad to see your awake, perfect timing actually." Joly walked in through the door. I sighed and semi glared at Gavroche.

"Thank my brother for that."

"Thank you Gavroche."

"No prob Joly." He waved as he bounced off the bed and out the open door to breakfast. Joly chuckled and set a tray down. I smiled at the scent of butter and eggs.

"Sleep well?" He asked.

"Yep." Rubbish.

"Good to hear. I thought I heard voices last night though. Must've been my imagination." He said and shrugged. He brought over a bottle."You're really going to hate me for this, but, I'd... like to take a look at your.. back." I instinctively went on the defensive mode, then remembered he already knew."Please, it'd be better then to leave your..you know, unattended, they could get infected." He reasoned with me. I saw his point. I sighed and started taking off my shirt.

"Could you turn around?" I asked. He blushed red and I giggled as he turned around. I unhooked my bra and faced away from him, having my shirt cover the small amounts of flesh that rested on my chest. "Okay, go ahead." I forced it out, still partially regretting this decision.

"This might hurt a little." He warned me. He moved his hand to one of my bruises and I tried not to wince. I felt a cool, smooth paste, bruise cream. He slathers it lightly on my blue and black splotches, covering them with the white cream. When he's finished, save the last of it, had sunken into the damaged skin. "Okay, that's that taken care of, just one more thing okay?" I nodded and felt a sharp pain on a recent lash wound that had yet to start scabbing. Luckily it didn't come through any clothes, the blood was staying firmly put. I hissed in pain as the source of it made it's way along each of the other lashing injuries. I realized with a start what it was."Cosette came by with it earlier. So you two lived together huh, that explains a lot." Joly answered my unspoken question. He once again finished quickly."That's it. Are you gonna be okay?" He asked as I slipped my shirt on.

"I've had worse." I replied. I heard him sigh.

"I know."

* * *

Joly was the only one who came in other than the other boys to say bye as they left for school. In this time, I formulated a plan. I waited until they came back and had gone to bed. I picked up my things that I had brought with me and walked quietly out of the room. I left the door open, no need to pretend I was there. I scribbled down four notes, one for Enjolras, one for Gavroche, one for Joly, and one for Grantaire Courfeyrac and Combeferre. I bit my lip as I took a look at the apartment, and left. I walked up and down the streets of the city, avoiding the occasional bike or midnight jogger. I felt my teeth chattering in the cold night air and my body shook with each step. I sneezed and coughed a few times, the virus in my body making me aware it was still there. I soon found my way back to the pub. It said closed, but the door opened easily.

"I was wondering when you'd come crawling back." My father's booming voice came before a slap across my cheek. I barely flinched, only let my head be pushed. "Where's that rat of a brother of yours?" He asked me. I bit back a snide remark and looked at the wooden floor.

"He ran away.." I looked up, scowling. I was probably never going to be forgiven for running away anyway, why continue on acting like a coward. Nobody would care any more. Enjolras would be turned into a liar. I could do this by myself.".because he didn't want to live with monsters like you!" I was pushed to the ground and landed on a bruise. I bit back a shriek as I fell. Soon four men were above me, including Montparnasse. Father's gang.

"You stupid girl. You think you can just walk away for a few days and not expect consequences when you slither back?" He asked me. I made no response. Then I heard a sound of metal. I braced myself as I heard his voice once more." You thought wrong." He brought down his belt.

* * *

Enjolras's P.O.V

I awoke in the middle of the night after dreaming of waterfalls. I did my business and walked back to my room, careful not to disturb the others. I made it back to my room when I realized that there was something stuck to my bedroom door. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was a note. I opened it as it had my name on it.

 _Dear Enjolras,_

 _I'm sorry for this, but I can't bear the fear of you and the others getting hurt. I have to leave you all. Don't expect to see me again, take care of Gavroche for me. I'm going home._

I couldn't read any more after that, my fist closed and balled the paper up. I ran to Joly's room. It didn't take long for him to read it and understand. We woke up the others and Gavroche. Grantaire rubbed his eyes as we stood outside his room.

"What?" We thrust the letter in his face and he read it. We saw no reason to keep this a secret for longer and told him Gavroche and Eponine's situation. His eyes widened and he pushed through us to the door. Courfeyrac held a sleeping Gavroche in his arms as the rest of us did the same. We all understood, get to Eponine...before it's too late.

* * *

We drove through the streets rapidly in Courfeyrac's van as Gavroche gave us directions. We soon found the inn. We slammed open the car doors and rushed into the inn. We were horrified to hear screams coming from inside. We looked at each other briefly before smashing the doors open. What lay before us was a horrible sight. Some men and a women stood off to the side as two men, one I recognized as Montparnasse, beat a bloodied figure. I realized with a start that the figure on the ground was Eponine. And her father kept bringing his belt down on her, over and over and over again while Montparnasse kicked her where she wasn't being whipped. I realized in terror that Eponine was coughing blood. Grantaire was the first to snap out of his stupor as he ran forward and tackled Montparnasse. The rest of us snapped out of it and went for the men. Gavroche ran towards his mother and fought the woman. As for me, I ran towards Thenadrier. I tackled him and ripped the belt from his hand.

"YOU FUCKING BASTARD, GET YOUR HANDS OFF THE WOMAN I LOVE!" I yelled as I punched him repeatedly. I soon had him in a headlock. I noticed Grantaire was finished with Montparanasse, who was on the ground. He already had his phone and was frantically dialing. I saw the others finish off the older men and knocking them out. Even their mother was in the pile by the stairs. My fight with Thenadrier continued on as we rolled around on the floor, throwing punches. Suddenly he had me on the floor and he was positioned above me with his hand raised, grasping something I couldn't make out beneath the bar's light fixtures. I saw a glint of silver and felt a deep pain in my shoulder. I heard blaring sirens and rumpling footsteps. Thenadrier was taken off me and I stood, clutching my shoulder. I slowly made my way over to Eponine's mangled figure."Eponine, look at me, you're gonna be okay, I promise." Her only response was her trying to speak, but ended up coughing out blood. She was still pale from her cold, as well as bloodloss. I saw people coming towards me and held onto her hand as the paramedics lifted Eponine onto a stretcher. I let go as they ran to the ambulance. Grantaire ran towards me. I looked at their own injuries. Gavroche had a black eye, but nothing more, thankfully. Combeferre's glasses were cracked. Joly had a shallow cut on his face and Grantaire had a nasty bruise forming on his cheek. Courfeyrac was the worst of us, two cuts, a few bruises and a nose that seemed to be broken.

"Enjolras, are- oh, no you aren't, WE NEED SOME HELP OVER HERE!" He yelled, adding head to the list of places I felt pain.

"Guys, it's nothing, I'm fine re-"

"You are not fine kid." Someone cut me off. Before I could argue any longer, I felt dizzy and spots danced in front of my eyes. The adrenaline had kept me going, but now it was wearing off. I fell to the ground and saw a blurry image of Eponine being put in the ambulance before descending into unconsciousness.

* * *

Grantaire's P.O.V

I watched helplessly as my best friends were loaded into the white vehicles that sped to the hospital. Gavroche had gone with Enjolras and Joly with Eponine. Combeferre and Courfeyrac walked to the van and we drove behind the ambulance that carried Enjolras. Combeferre informed Marius and Cosette and Feuilly of the situation once we got to the hospital. Soon enough the three of them, as well as Valjean, burst into the waiting room. I sat silently as Joly paced, Gavroche cried and Courfeyrac comforted him. Combeferre bounced his knee up and down. Cosette wept into Marius' shoulder. Feuilly was stuck in a similar state as me, shocked and afraid for our friends. Valjean sat beside me, leaving his daughter to her boyfriend.

"You doing alright?"

"No." I answered honestly. He patted my back supportively and rubbed it afterwards.

"They'll be okay. Those two are the strongest kids I know. We have nothing to worry about." I nodded, wishing, praying that I could believe him. We waited, and waited, and waited. Finally a nurse came out.

"I'm looking for a Grantaire Seine?" I bolted up.

"That would be me." I went up to her.

"The boy will be okay." We all breathed a small sigh of relief before remembering Eponine.

"And the girl?" I asked frantically. She backed up a little. I pleaded silently that she would be the same.

"Still unsure. She's stable, but very weak." The woman said.

"Stable's good, right lady?" Gavroche pulled on her pink scrubs. She knelt down to his level.

"Yeah buddy, stable's fine." Gavroche seemed to get even more worried.

"THAT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING!" He yelled at her. She looked startled and confused as he ran out. Courfeyrac followed him. The nurse stood up and looked at us, silently asking what his outburst was about.

"He's her sister. He's sort of learned that if she says she's fine, she's not. The word sort of triggers that." Joly explained. I was impressed. He usually would be bursting at the seams with anxiety. But he had fought a man twice his size tonight, that was not usual Joly.

"Oh, well when he comes back, tell him that stable is a good thing."

"I'll be sure to." A voice came from behind her. We looked past her as she turned around. Enjolras stood there, his arm in a sling, his shoulder bandaged. We all smiled and went to hug him or lightly pat him on the back. I looked to the nurse.

"Would it be okay if we went to check on her?" I asked. She nodded.

"Sure, but two at a time please." She said. Gavroche had come back in with Courfeyrac long enough to hear. Enjolras told him that Stable was good. He seemed to relax at that.

"How about you two go in first, to see her I mean." I told them. We all nodded and watched the two follow the nurse into the room.

* * *

Enjolras's P.O.V

I held Gavroche's shaking hand as we walked into the room. We were immediately met with a beeping noise coming from her hear monitor. It was a sorry sight to see, one that nearly put Gavroche to tears once more. Eponine laid on her side so that the wounds on her back were not under too much pressure. Red stained bandages wrapped around her torso. Her only covering was a hospital gown pulled up to cover her unmentionables. A ventilator mask was on top of her nose and mouth. I was snapped out of my train of thought when Gavroche squeezed my hand, probably attempting to make fists in both his hand.

"I'm gonna kill him." He muttered. I wanted to do the same, but Gavroche needed me. I bent down to him.

"Hey, she'll be okay, I promise you." I hugged him and he sobbed into my shoulder. I saw a man with black hair and navy scrubs walk into the room. I carefully picked Gavroche up with my un-bandaged arm.

"Hello boys, I'm , cheif resident." He shook Gavroche's hand as mine were either incapacitated or full.

"Enjolras Hugo, and this is Gavroche."

"Is my sister gonna be okay?" Gavroche looked at Dorian. He nodded, smiling.

"Yeah, she'll be f- " I shook my head, silently telling him not to use that word. "Okay, she'll be okay." Gavroche and I exhaled in relief. "Although Gavroche, if you don't mind, I'm just going to talk to Enjolras for a bit, okay?" He asked the boy. He thought about it for a second and nodded. I let him down.

"Hey, why don't you go tell the others the good news, okay?" He smiled and nodded, running out. I lost my smile as he turned to me."Okay Dorian, how is she really?" I demanded. He tensed up a little and looked down.

"Her right leg is fractured and bruised quite a bit. The older wounds on her back were close to bursting. And she has about 5 broken ribs, one of them punctured her lung. She _should_ be fine, but she's not out of the woods yet...I'm sorry. We'll do as much as we can." He patted my shoulder before ushering me out so he could work on her. I walked out dejectedly and hoped that Eponine would come out of this alive.


	10. Chapter 10

Enjolras's P.O.V

I sat with Grantaire and Gavroche. The others were still convinced that Eponine would be okay. Meanwhile my own mind replayed what Dr Dorian had said, over and over again. 'She's not out of the woods yet.' If I could I would cut a path through those woods and set up a beacon she could confidently and casually walk towards. I'd get rid of anything in her path so her trip would be easier. Grantaire and Gavroche now stared at me with a smirk and a glare. You could probably guess which which was which. I looked at them.

"What?" I asked.

"You love my sister do you Enjolras?" Gavroche glared up at me. I blushed, remembering my words to Thenadrier. The ten year old glared at me with an unwavering gaze, his usual spunk retrieved. I gulped and Grantaire laughed at my discomfort.

"...Yes Gav, I think I do." At this, Grantaire stopped laughing and the others looked to me. Gavroche seemed to consider this for a bit before walking away to Courfeyrac and the others.

"Pay up losers." He held his hand out and everyone grudgingly stuffed money into the boy's hand. Even Valjean.

"You guys bet on this?!" I asked, feeling somewhat violated and insulted. Gavroche nodded as he counted the money in his hands.

"Oh yeah, I could actually buy my own Xbox with this much." He grinned pocketed the money. I sighed to myself. As much as I wanted to be mad at him, I couldn't. I had just admitted to all my friends that I loved Eponine, not liked, loved. I sighed as they laughed or grinned, despite losing about a hundred bucks each.

"Come on guys lay off, this is hardly the time to be laughing about anything." I said in a dejected manner. "I'm going back in, I wanna be there when she wakes up. Come if you want to." I stood up and made my way back to her room, 601. I had memorized it. I walked into the room as Dr Dorian walked out.

"Oh, Enjolras, good timing. She's a little better than I thought, her leg's only sprained, yes that's better than fractured, and it's only 2 ribs that are broken. It should be easier for her to recover when she waked up. " He patted my shoulder and walked away to check on other patients. I took a deep breath and pushed the door open once more. She was looking better. The ventilator mask had been replaced by a smaller tube that snaked inside her nose and out to an unknown source. Her cheeks now held colour, but were still sunken in. I smiled a little as I sat down. I waited for a little while, even though I knew nothing would happen. The others came in at different points to see her. Joly and Combeferre were the most supportive. They had sat down on the other side of her. Combeferre smiled.

"She looks a little like Hazel Grace." I smiled as I recalled Eponine's favourite novel, The fault in our stars. The pair looked at each other and grinned. They left some time later and I fell asleep.

* * *

 _I awoke to bright lights. I looked around and saw that I was tied to a chair. I tried struggling against the rough restraints, but to no avail. A scene appeared before me and I was fairly sure I stopped breathing as I watched a scene that would forever be engraved into my memory._

 _"NO FATHER PLEASE, PLEASE STOP IT, I'LL BEHAVE, I'LL BE GOOD, I'LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT!" It was Eponine, tied to a post as people took turns flaying her alive._

 _"STOP IT, LEAVE HER ALONE SHE'S YOUR DAUGHTER!" I yelled out, and the figure turned to me. My eyes widened in horror as the figures switched out form her father and his gang, to our own group of friends, each with a sadistic grin upon their face._

 _"STOP IT, PLEASE, MARIUS, COSETTE, GAVROCHE! PLEASE!" She begged and begged but they never stopped. Finally I broke free of the restraints and ran to her, taking the lash that Marius dealt. My body screamed with pain as it continued, but my heart was torn in two as Eponine was dead in my hands. Slowly disappearing into nothingness._

 _"No, nononono Eponine, stay with me, Eponine don't leave me, EPONINE!" I cried out._

I awoke with a start and looked around frantically. To my great relief, I was not restrained, and Eponine still lay in her hospital bed. Just a dream. I slipped my hand into hers and kissed it.

"You'll be okay." I said softly and closed my eyes once more.

* * *

"Mmm." I heard a groan a few hours later and looked down to see Eponine's eyes slipping open."ut's oing-" She stopped with a start and looked around frantically for something. My guess was she still thought she was with her father. I quickly sat her up and tried to ignore her cry of pain."P-please dad, I'll behave, don't hurt me please!" She called out. My heart split to hear her say those words.

"Hey, Eponine, Eponine, it's me, it's Enjolras. You're in the hospital, you're not near that monster, he's far away and going to go to jail." I soothed her. I felt her stop shaking and she looked around.

"Enjolras?" She said softly. I nodded, smiling.

"Yeah, it's me." I looked at her and saw her tear up. I frowned."Hey, what-" She didn't say anything as she hugged me tightly.

"Thank you. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She said into my chest. I was startled to say the least.

"What are you sorry for?" I asked.

"For leaving so quickly." She replied."For not believing you. For being stupid enough to think that you guys would care." The last one shocked me.

"First, we'll talk about that later, Second, I get it, and three. Of course we care. We're all here. Everyone's waiting for you to wake up in the waiting room. Even Valjean's here."

"R-really?" I took her in my arms so she could face me.

"Listen to me. You are the most, amazing, beautiful, adorable, witty, intelligent, and caring girl that any of us have ever known. And..."

"And?" She prompted me. This was it, it was time. I took a deep breath and kissed her passionately. She didn't at first, but then she slowly kissed back. I pulled away, needing oxygen, and figuring she needed it more than me.

"I love you Eponine Thenadrier." She opened her mouth to say something, but we were very rudely interrupted.

"DAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMNNNNNNNN!" Grnatiare's voice came from the door. Gavroche was grinning ear to ear for the second time that night.

"PAY UP AGAIN!" He grinned as once more people surrendered their money.

"You guys bet on-"

"We sure did sis. Now go back to smoochy smoochy." Gavroche said, walking away. The others all laughed as they left us, both redder than a third of the french flag. She turned back to me and kissed me once more.

"I love you Enjolras Hugo." She smiled and wrapped her arms around me. I did the same and kissed the top of her head.

"Am I interr-"

"YES!"


	11. Chapter 11

Enjolras's P.O.V

After two days Eponine was released and we could take her back to our place. She had been released much, much earlier than expected(mainly because she threatened to lay the smack down on Dorian if she wasn't), so she was still on bed rest, by both the doctor's and Joly's orders, neither of which she took seriously as she kept trying to get up. Joly had promised the doctor we'd look after her and call immediately if something was wrong

"But I'm so booooored." She said for the 50th time as we sat on the bed. The boys, especially Grantaire and Gavroche, had been teasing us non stop about the amount of time we spent together.

"Then let's talk." I prompted. She huffed.

"We've done nothing but talk. I wanna go back to school. I wanna go to rehearsals." She whined. I sighed to myself, then smiled and looked at her."What?" I grinned and started tickling her.

"How's this for a boredom buster?" I felt like I was cackling.

"HAHAHA STOP IT ENJOLRAS! HAHA! STOP, OW!" I immediately stopped and looked at her.

"Oh my god I'm so sor-"

"REVENGE!" She tackled me and started to tickle me even more.

"Okay Enjolr- WHAT THE DEVIL IS GOING ON IN HERE?!" We stopped instantly and slowly turned towards the door. Joly stood there with two bottles in his hand as well as a cloth or two, and his face was redder than my hoodie with anger. Eponine got off me and guiltily sat down against the pillow. I twiddled my thumbs. He pointed to me."Out, I'll deal with you later." I reluctantly complied, giving Eponine a smile as Joly's back was turned before walking out.

* * *

Eponine's P.O.V

I looked at Joly, who was back to his normal colour. He was still glaring at me. I gulped and he just sighed."Do I want to know why you two got in a tickle fight and risked opening your stitches?"

"..I was bored?" I chucked nervously. Joly like he was about to burst a stitch of his own, but calmed down.

"No more tickle fights. If you're bored, try reading a book." He said saltily. I giggled and nodded.

"Yes sir." I mock saluted him. He rolled his eyes and began his quote on quote check up. In other words, making sure that one, my stitches hadn't burst, two, give me my foul medicine, and three, that I hadn't run away again. Why they thought I would, I would never really know. About twenty minutes or so later, Gavroche came bounding into my room with the heaven's gift to man. Chocolate. And not just any, Dark chocolate filled with rich gooey caramel. God it was good. Great, I sound like a candy commercial."Thanks Gavroche, you are honestly the best thing to ever happen to me, to anyone."

"Even Enjolras?" He asked in a teasing manner. I rolled my eyes. We hadn't even made anything official yet and already we were the next Feuilly and Musichetta. I ruffled his hair.

"Even Enjolras." I confirmed. He grinned and we continued talking for a while. He had beat Combeferre's high score on Zelda. And had gotten a perfect score on an acting assignment. I smiled and congratulated him on both accomplishments. Then came the dreaded predicament I had been avoiding at all costs for about half a month now.

"Eponine, why'd you leave? Before I mean." I gulped. For a while I had built up various excuses and/or reasons. All of them were to prevent me from facing the truth. But it was time to let it out. I just hoped he could handle it, no, that I could handle it.

"Because I was scared. Scared that people would care if something happened to me. Scared that dad would come after all of you. Scared that I was starting to love Enjolras and I could never really give him a good relationship. Scared that something would happen to you. Scared. Just scared of it. So, I left, so that I would be only one who got hurt." I hugged him."I'm sorry Gavroche."

"It's okay.

* * *

Later that day I was finally let out of my room.

"There she is!" Grantaire and the others rushed towards me."Come on Ponine, it's time for...MOVIE NIGHT!" They all yelled. I covered my ears while laughing. We all ran to the couch as Courfeyrac popped four bags of popcorn in a row. Combeferre broke into the pop stash and even decided to let Grantaire have a little wine."FINALLY, THANK YOU FERRE YOU ARETHE BEST BOYFRIEND ON EARTH!" He turned to the rest of us."Oh, yeah, we started dating." We all looked at Combeferre, who blushed furiously, and nodded. We all smiled at each other and money exchanged through three hands. Gavroche and I smiled. Our movie that night was chosen by Enjolras, the entire harry potter series.

~ later that nigh~

Gavroche was asleep, Combeferre and Grantaire were holding onto each other, Courfeyrac and Joly were putting away the snacks, and Enjolras switched off the T.V. I myself after sitting for so long, only to get up for food and bathroom breaks, was feeling slightly sluggish and weak. The virus was still there. Joly had told me it would go away after a few more days. But I had apparently been starting to get sick even before the day we skipped, so it would stay. To which I replied: Sad face. Suddenly I felt warm arms around me and I looked up to see Enjolras carrying me towards my room. Courfeyrac took Gavroche, who was cutely sucking his thumb, and walked towards my brother's room. I smiled, even at ten years old, he couldn't kick the habbit.

"He's a cute kid, but sometimes I think he's too smart for his own good." Enjolras told me as he backed up through the door. Our rooms had been converted from spare rooms to our own special rooms. Over the past few days, the guys and Cosette had gotten us some decor. I had some musical posters and Gavroce had book and video game posters. I had a nice picture of our group, a smaller version of the blow up picture in Courfeyrac's room. Needless to say it was the nicest room I had ever stayed in.

"Yeah." I agreed with Enjolras, shivering a little. He put me down in the bed and pulled the covers up."Thanks Enj...hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure." He nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed. I bit my lip.'

"What is this, us I mean, are we like, a thing? Or what?" I asked. I kind of hoped we were to be honest. He smiled softly at me.

"We can be whatever you want us to be." He rubbed small circles on my hand with his thumb. I smiled at him and sat up. I lightly grabbed his face and brushed my lips up against his.

"Alright then, boyfriend." I smiled and hugged him. He hugged me back and I couldn't have felt happier. Unfortunately, that happiness wouldn't last for much longer.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey all, in spite of recent events happening, and the fact that I am completely scared/terrified because I'm bi, and the fact that I think they deserve it, I am giving Combeferre and Grantaire a special chapter.**

Combeferre's P.O.V

I walked through the halls at school. Enjolras had insisted he could take care of Eponine so Joly finally came to school. Grantaire was at his locker. I smiled.

"Hey."

"Hey babe." He smiled and hugged me."Good day?" He seemed to pick up on my mood.

"I may or may not have happened to have spotted a speckled morning glory moth on my way here." I smiled. He rolled his eyes.

"Only you would get excited about moths."

"Hey, they are fascinating creatures." I protested. He chuckled and kissed me. I smiled and kissed back.

"Whatever you say, genius." He poked me. I rolled my eyes this time. We saw the others come over as we finished kissing again.

"Get a room you two!" Courfeyrac yelled. The others laughed. I smiled and looked at Gavroche, who was laughing along side them. The boy had gotten used to romance over the years he spent with us, so he didn't have the 'eww, kissing is gross' thing to him anymore except once in a while. Recently, there had been many reports of hate crimes and seeing this ten year old boy, not questioning our relationship and having Rent as a favourite movie was a little bit of a miracle. And then you had him.

"WEll look who it is, the people who got me in jail." Montparnasse made his way through the halls. I sighed.

"Just ignore him. Gav, get behind Courf, okay?" The boy nodded scaredly and got behind our big friend. He stopped in front of us and glared.

"Where's that little bitch who calls herself Ponine?" He asked. Courfeyrac covered Gavroche's ears. Grantaire stepped forward.

"She's not here, and you're never gonna see her again." He pushed him back. Montparnasse stumbled."There's 9 of us and one of you, so leave her alone or so help me we will kill you." He smirked and we did too as we all started to walk away.

"YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, WALK AWAY YOU BIG FAGS!" At this we stopped. Grantaire looked almost...scared. I turned around slowly and handed my book to Marius. I could hear words of betting or how someone was going down. I desperately hoped they weren't referring to me.

"What did you just call me?" I asked.

" .Fag." He spat in my face.

"You my friend just made a big mistake." I took off my jacket and tackled him. I rolled around the floor, throwing punches and kicking him where the sun don't shine many many times. When he seemed to be done I stood up and smiled."I'm gay and proud of it, asshole. So go shove your prejudice up your ass." I heard slow clapping and turned to my boyfriend, who was just stnading there with the cutest grin on his face. I smiled and walked up to him, taking my jacket. My glasses had come off in the fight and he handed them to me. I smiled. I had the hall's attention, may as well give them a good finale. I pushed my lips onto his and he kissed passionately back. We heard cheering and wolf whistles echo through the halls. I broke away and grabbed Grantaire's hand.

"I love you genius."

"I love you too wine boy." I put my arm over his shoulder as we all walked to art. I sat myself down at the eisel and began painting. It was him. It was Me, Grantaire, Enjolras, and Courfeyrac, all waving rainbow flags and looking fairly badass if I do say so myself, which I do. I smiled and told myself to make two copies and give one to Grantaire and one for myself. To remind myself nobody could take this from me. That it was who I am.


	13. Chapter 13

Eponine's P.O.V

I sat in the kitchen with Enjolras as he took over Joly's usual job of tending to my scars. He honestly didn't seem that fazed by it and it was starting to freak me out. He just calmly applied the medicine. I refrained from asking him about after it crept into my mind, for about five seconds.

"Why are you being so calm about this, even joly gets nervous when he does this and he's done this like ten times!" I exclaimed. He jumped and accidentally pressed one of my wounds. I hissed in pain and he quickly apologized.

"Ooh, sorry." Once I had calmed down, he continued to slather on the medicine. "Well, do you really wanna know? It's kind of gruesome."

"Said the boy slathering paste onto a belt wound." I retorted.

"Fair enough.." He took a deep breath."When I was about 4 or 3 maybe, my father died saving me in a car accident. My mother and I grieved for a long time before she finally moved on. She found a guy who seemed nice enough, and he was. He'd be nice and all, help me with homework or encourage my piano playing. But then, mom got sick, really sick. She had leukemia and I remember one day I asked her where all her hair was because she had been going bald. She told me that all her hair had run away to live with a traveling circus." I chuckled at this part. "And then a few weeks later, she died. I was 5. That's when things started to look bad. My step dad, he got mad, really quickly. Some times, if I asked where mom was, he'd go ballistic and start beating me up. Eventually he started to whip me every few nights. I finally got kicked out when I was 12 and Courfeyrac's dad let me stay with him and Joly." He finished. I was speechless. I turned around and hugged him. I felt him tense up.

"Well, you're here now." I tried. He smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, I am... Come on, I need to finish or joly'll have a fit." I complied and turned around.

* * *

When the boys came home, Joly and Grantaire were fussing over something, when suddenly I saw Combeferre's eye, it was swollen.

"Come on pookie, just let him look at it."

"Don't call me pookie, we're not Maureen and Joanne...okay we totally are but still."

"Please, Montparnasse packs a hard punch." I stopped short. Montparnasse had hurt Combeferre. "Oh, hey Ponine, hey are you okay?" I was about to nod when I felt dizzy and spots ran in front of my eyes like my eyeballs were treadmills. My vision became blurry and I felt my head hit the couch.

Enjolras's P.O.V

We looked at each other as Gavroche ran over to look at his sister.

"Ponine, Eponine, wake up!" He shook her. I motioned for him to stop. He reluctantly did. I pinched her shoulder and she woke up, rubbing her shoulder.

"Montparnasse is...out of jail. Oh god, oh no oh no oh god no." She said, starting to hyperventilate. I put my arms around her.

"Hey, it's okay, he won't get to yo-"

"You don't understand," She pushed my arms off of her. "if he's out, my dad is too! And he'll come for you, he'll come for all of you, and he'll, and he'll.." She was crying. I looked on in horror as the woman I loved, who was usually so strong and bold, sat shaking like a child.

"He won't get us, or you guys. I promise." Combeferre said what I couldn't. The others nodded.

"For sure."

"Totally."

"And if he does, it'll be like:," Grantaire made a finger gun. "You came to the wrong apartment mother effer." We laughed at this and Gavroche was on the floor. Eponine smiled, reassured. I was too. Because Grantaire was right for a change(Grantaire:HEY!) because if their father came for them, he wouldn't just be coming to the wrong apartment, he'd be living the wrong life.


	14. Chapter 14

**Hey everyone. So, sorry I haven't been replying, but thank you so much for reading this story. So here are some nice rehearsal shennanigans for you. Also, school is ending soon so I can update more often, unless I'm at camp.**

~a few days later~

Enjolras's P.O.V

Eponine could finally come back to school and it was so nice to be there. Someone always had to be with her and Gavroche so Montparnasse didn't try to come after them. Valjean was exceedingly happy to have his Elphaba back. I think we all were, her understudy had been especially obnoxious about 'getting' the role. And I was happy to be dancing with Eponine again. Cosette had been very happy. She had literally tackled Eponine in a hug when she walked into rehearsal. Marius had been happy too. We now stood on the stage, doing a warm up game. We found a song and danced to it the way our characters would. I was simply twirling and jumping on everything that could hold me. Poor Joly was down on all fours. Eponine, being true to her character, wasn't dancing at all, and Cossette kept 'trying' to dance with me, and Marius was doing the same to her. The girl who was playing Nessa spun around in her chair. It was a lot of fun to say the least. Soon we weren't even dancing as our characters, but ourselves. Eponine couldn't resist it for much longer so she started the whole thing. Marius and Cosette were quickly waltzing around the room and Grantaire and Combeferre were doing a mix of salsa and tango. As for Eponine and I, we danced around like we were in an ozian ballroom. We were so wrapped up in the moment that we didn't see, but we were the only ones dancing. Suddenly it was nothing but a slow spin in the same place over and over again. I looked into her sparkling, milk chocolate eyes and she stared back at me. I smashed my lips against hers and she passionately kissed back. We heard cheering and looked at our friends, who were all smirking or laughing. I rolled my eyes and we broke apart.

"Alright guys, come on, let's get to work." Valjean started. We nodded and got to work. We went through the first couple of scenes and it was fun.

"There's been some confusion, for you see my room mate is.."

"Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and all together quite impossible to descirbe.."

"Blonde." Everyone laughed. The coreography started and I danced in the wide wings. I wasn't in this scene unfortunately, but everyone was having so much fun that it was hard to not dance along. Before long the song was over, and Gavroche, who was in the audience, which was the usual as of late, was clapping and whistling. They all mock bowed for him. He stood and mock bowed back and they all smiled. The other performers that weren't in out own group thought Gavroche was adorable, and often said so. He was polite enough about it and didn't get fussy like whenever we called him that. Eponine walked over and swapped out her pointed hat for a water bottle."Man, that song is much more tiring than it seems." I smiled.

"Please, you try doing dancing through life ten times in a row, then we'll talk." She looked, or more so glared, at me.

"Two words, defying gravity." I conceded after that one. I lowered my voice to a whisper.

"Are you doing okay, your injuries I mean." I asked her. When my thoughts allowed themselves to wonder, all I could do was worry about her.

"Please, it's fine. Just a little achy, nothing more." I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh really, like how you were just achy at the christmas party?"

* * *

 _Combeferre sat Eponine down on the sofa with a little help from Grantaire. It was christmas of the freshman year and I hadn't gotten to know Eponine that well at this point. I still had anger problems at the time. Earlier that night Gavroche had burst into the cafe we were usually at, the musain, looking distressed and had informed us that his sister was being mugged, and beaten. We had gone to help and luckily got there in time._

 _"Guys, it's fine, it's nothing to-"_

 _"Worry about? Eponine, you got mugged and almost got..." Joly trailed off, I could tell he didn't want to finish that sentence. ( **not that ya pervs!)**_

 _"Killed I know, I was there, remember?" She joked. But it was no laughing matter. She had multiple bruises and a few cuts on her face and arms. Joly pushed the rest of us away to carry on._

 _"Enjolras, I'll need some help over here. You bandage her arms, I'll go get some bruise cream." He rushed off, leaving me to deal with a temperamental woman. I wasted no time in tying the cloth around her arms, but she was more slippery than a fish in water._

 _"Stop it that hurts." She moaned._

 _"Well maybe, if you didn't fricking move so much it would hurt less!" I protested, already fed up.(blame the anger)_

 _"Well maybe you should control your temper!" She replied hotly._

 _"THAT'S WHAT WE SAID!" Everyone shouted at once. We jumped and I stopped for a second._

 _"Sorry. I have anger issues." I admitted.I was somewhat shocked by myself. Normally I wasn't really that forward with people, even Combeferre. She bit her lip._

 _"It's okay." Joly came back with the bruise cream and our conversation ended there._

* * *

She rolled her eyes.

"No, like a headache kinda ache." I made like elsa and let it go after that. The rest of rehearsal was filled with notes, dancing, singing and lots of complaining and catching up. At the end of it, Valjena was happy, we were happy, everyone was happy. Gavroche rested on Courfeyrac's shoulders as we all walked home together. Joly was still questioning Eponine about the virus, Combeferre and Grantaire had each other's arms over the other's shoulder. I simply watched it with a smile. This was my family, no doubt about it. And nothing could convince me otherwise.

"Come on guyyys." Courfeyrac drawled."Let's go out tonigh- oh crap."

"We're going OOOUUUOOOOOOOOOOT TONIGHT! WE GOT TO GO OOUOOOOOOOOT TONIGHT!" we all burst into song. That was a thing that happened with us, one word, or phrase could trigger a song.

"God you guys are so annoying sometimes. Let's go eat out okay." I smiled.

"Let's go eat, I'll just get fat, it's the one vice left when you're dead meeat." I sang. He sighed as we all walked back. By the time we got into the apartment we had sung all the happy songs of Rent.(minus la vie boheme because of Gav). We did indeed decide to let someone else cook so we simply ordered pizza. We sat on the couches and happily slurped down the greasy, cheesy goodness.

"Mm, it's so good." Gavroche smiled as he finished his third slice. We al agreed."So, are we having a movie night tonight?" He asked.

"Not tonight bud, it's a school night." Combeferre replied. The ten year old pouted but walked to his room anyways. Courfeyrac chuckled and went to tuck him in. Eponine stretched out on her couch that she had claimed for the night.

"I think I might tuck in tonight too." She stood up. We nodded.

"Alright, call me if you need anything." I told her and kissed her cheek before she walked back to her room. Grantaire, Joly, and Combeferre smirked at me. "What?" I asked.

"You actually did it."

"The mighty Enjolras Hugo has asked the fair Eponine Thenadrier out and she has said yes."

"And are now showing PDA!" I rolled my eyes.

"It's my life, I think I know what's going on." They smiled.

"Yeah, but it's much more fun to tease you about it."

* * *

The next morning started out normally. We had art and dance. I worked on my special present for Eponine, which was almost done, and she continued working on the painting of our group. In dance, we continued to work on our ballroom dance project. But then, it happened. Since the snow had started falling the night before, we couldn't go out into the clearing, so we sat in the dreaded Cafeteria. We found an empty table and made some new friends, who instantly became new additions to the group. Bossuet and Jehan. Gavroche seemed to really like the both of them. Anyway, we heard a sickening voice behind us.

"So you're finally back you little slut." Montparnasse's voice snaked it's way into our ears. I Felt Eponine tense up and I slightly tightened my grip on her. I had heard about the incident with him and Combeferre, and I was not about to let him hurt her.

"What do you want Parnasse?" Gavroche glared at the older boy. It was only then that I realized in horror that the ten year old was in front of Montparnasse. My eyes widened in horror as he pushed Gavroche to the ground.

"Out of the way you little twat. Or you'll be next." We just sat there, frozen as Gavorche lept onto the older boy's leg and Montparnasse punched him in the face.

"YOU BASTARD!" Eponine lept from the table and onto Montparnasse, tackling him and repeatedly punching him and kicking too. It was only a matter of seconds before his arm was behind his back and his face was pressed into the floor."I've got a little message for dad, so send it to him, will you? Tell him that he, and his minions like you can come after me, but if you lay a finger on Gav, you'll wish you were dead." She released his arm and we all watched as he scampered off. There was a silence as we realized the whole cafeteria had been watching. Suddenly we heard clapping, and more joined it, and soon eveyrone was cheering. I smiled and lifted my girlfriend onto my shoulders.

"Well miss thenadrier, I do believe you've become school hero." I teased her and she flicked my head.

"Oh shut it you."

* * *

 **Yay! new chapter. So Bossuet and Jehan finally make an entrance, and Eponine has some badasserey. please R & R.**


	15. Chapter 15

Today was the day. Eponine's birthday. The boys, Cosette, and I had been planning for months, and Jehan and Bossuet were far more than happy to contribute. They may have in fact made it better because Bossuet and Jehan were much better at baking than the rest of us. Combeferre worked on making sure everything was a surprise. Courfeyrac and Grantaire worked on the barbecue. I was with Joly working on the decorations. Gavroche, Marius and Cosette were tasked with keeping her occupied. I put some tape over the streamers in the living room.

"Why couldn't I have been keeping her occupied, I'm her boyfriend."

"And you are honestly the worst secret keeper ever." Joly replied as he tied a balloon."Remember Marius' cristmas present surprise?" I rolled my eyes.

"Alright, fair enough."I replied. Combeferre came in.

"Cosette just texted me. We have about an hour and a half before they get here." He informed us. We nodded and got to work.

* * *

Eponine's P.O.V

 _How did I get here?_ That was all I could think as I sat in the movie theatre, completely blown away with tears trailing down my now less sunken cheeks. Let's go back three hours earlier.

 _"Come on guys, you really don't have to do this." I protested as Marius, Cosette, Gavroche and I rode in a big fancy car to Marius' estate. Yep. Estate. Marius was a fricking white rich boy._

 _"Nonsense, you've never seen the harry potter movies, so you have to watch them all! And it's your birthday, so consider this our gift." Cosette replied. I rolled my eyes._

 _"Thank you guys really, but I'm kind of worried that they'll ruin the books for me."_

 _"Eeeppp, shut up, we finally get to go to Marius's place." Gav said beside me. I rolled my eyes again. Marius' did indeed have an amazing house, or manor is probably a better word. The building had ivy snaking its way up the stone walls. The iron gate was well oiled and the metal curved upwards. A long winding road lead up to the place. I couldn't see anything else past that. My mouth looked like a fly trap. I barely registered the gates opening as I turned to Cosette, who was obviously holding in a laugh._

 _"Yeah, that was my expression too." She chuckled. Marius smiled._

 _"No, I think you were paler." He replied, smiling as we pulled up to the building. The walls were of a sleek black stone that looked like something out of a movie. The roof looked like something from a victorian architecture couple lead us into the house. I won't bore you with details, but it was fancy! Finally we stopped in a miniature living room that was connected to Marius' bedroom. I did not want to think about what he and Cosette had done in there. I pushed away that disturbance and focused on the living room. There was a TV in the wall, a small gas fireplace and thousands of snacks. Cosette grabbed the DVDs and slid the first one into the player._

And now I was here sobbing my eyes out because it was so dang beautiful. Gavroche had fallen asleep partway through the halfblood prince. Cosette smiled and wiped her tears away."Okay. Come on, let's go home." I nodded. I decided we could walk there so we could get some exercise and some fresh air. We weren't halfway there when I felt like someone was following us. Suddenly someone covered my mouth and pulled me into an alleyway.

"Hello my dear, long time no see." I tensed. Dad."Oh isn't it your birthday today, remember what we used to do on your birthday?"my eyes widened in fear. Suddenly I felt a swift blow to my head, and the world went black.

* * *

 **Hello my lovelies, sorry I've been dormant for a while. and that this chapter was so short. I was in school, but I am not anymore yay! so yeah.R And R plz**


	16. Chapter 16

I awoke to darkness, then a familiar smell of alcohol.

"What do you think we ought to do with them?"

"Hmm, well, me own brat'll get the worst. But that doesn't mean we can't have little fun with these two."

"Leave her alone!" I gasped. Marius. Then I heard an agonizing scream.

"MARIUS!" Cosette. They were here. Suddenly the darkness was ripped away and bright lights shone down on the place like a cloudless summer afternoon. My eyes adjusted fairly quickly and I looked around. Marius and Cosette were tied to separate chairs. I tried to run to them, only to find I was tied to one of the pillars. I was back in the inn. I looked around and sighed in relief when I didn't see Gavroche.

"Ello my dear, glad to be up now are we?" I shuddered. Dad. He stood in front of me with a belt in his hand. My breath hitched in my throat. "What, you aren't speaking now?" I glared at him. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a response, or a reaction."Respond dammit!" He slapped me, yet still I didn't give him what he wanted. "Listen here you little bitch, you have ten seconds to talk to me or this gets ugly. I'd like to still keep my little punching bag alive." The seconds felt like years as I still refused to say anything, until the last one.

"You bastard. You think you can control me, you can't. You don't own me anymore." I spat at him. He glared at me and I only smirked."What, you said respond, I did."

"Oh now you're in for it!" He started punching me in the stomach. I managed not to scream with the first few blows, just a slight oof, but as it worsened I couldn't hold in the pain. He stopped when I first cried out. "So we are a little vulnerable." He chuckled. I glared at him and he smirked back, our roles reversed. Suddenly his smirk widened."You may be used to punishments," He raised his hand and pointed at Cosette."But she sure as hell ain't." My eyes widened and Marius' face turned from a look of pain to one of fury.

"DON'T YOU DARE HURT MY GIRLFRIEND YOU FILTHY BASTARD!" He struggled against his ropes, bringing his chair to the floor. Brujon, whose face I had made out ages ago, kicked him in the face. I pressed my wrist against the bindings, trying to get out.

"LEAVE THEM ALONE!" I yelled out at my father and his gang. I was silenced with another blow.

"AGH!"

"STOP IT, DON'T HURT HER!" Marius yelled in futile attempts but was silenced by another kick.

"SHUT UP!"

"AAGH!"

" ** _I SAID STOP IT!"_** There was a silence after that. Dad glared at me. I glared right back."Please, let them go, and I'll stay here, hurt me in their place, do anything you want with me, just please, don't hurt them." My father seemed to contemplate this for a while before snapping his fingers and letting them go. It was only then that I noticed Cosette's shirt front was torn open, with a long cut that was slowly dripping down her clear, pale skin. A lash wound. That. That did it for me. I felt my fury increase ten fold." YOU BASTARDS DID THAT TO HER?! I WISH ALL OF YOU WERE DEAD, NO, BEING TORTURED SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY TO DEATH!" I received many more lashes and beatings after this. At one point they untied me and just left me on the floor, bleeding. Then they decided they were finished for a while and someone, I don't know who, dragged my back up to my room and tied me down again. He snickered as he tightened the ropes against my wounds. I only winced. It was then I knew that if this carried on, I probably wouldn't make it to the new year. I'd never see Gavroche or Grantaire again, no more paranoid Joly. No more Cosette. No more Lamarque. No more Enjolras. It was only now that I allowed myself to finally break out into tears.

Enjolras's P.O.V

I sat on the couch. We had been waiting for hours for the other four to arrive. The cake had been put away and we had watched like 5 movies. Suddenly the door burst open, and in ran a very scared, sobbing Gavroche, and a very bruised and bloody Cosette and Marius. We rushed over to them immediately.

"Joly get your medicine bag and some bandages!"

"Jehan, get some water!"

"Courfeyrac, grab a towel!"

"Grantaire, go into the medicine cabinet and find some iodine."

"Please, help her." Marius pleaded with me. It was only then that I noticed the long gash along Cosette's stomach. I put Cosette's other arm, the other was across Marius' shoulders, over my own. We helped her to the couch and Joly quickly started tending to her. I took Marius to the kitchen table and Combeferre went about treating him.

"Guys, what happened, where's Eponine?" He didn't say anything for a while."Marius, marius where is she?" I prodded him, starting to get antsy.

"She wanted to walk back, said we could use fresh air or something like that." He started talking."She kept saying that she felt like something was following us, we didn't take it seriously. Then we heard her scream and we saw her being pulled into an alley. We tried to stop them Enjolras, we really did, but there was too many of them. They, they took us back to the inn and they started talking, if we said something we'd get hurt. Cosette she got, she got-"

"I know Marius, I know, I saw."

"That's not even the worst part. They said, they said, they said, oh god Ponine." He put a hand to his mouth.

"Marius, what, what did they say?"

"They said, they said that in a week,

they're going kill her!"

 **Dun dun daaaaa! Hello my lovely readers, thank you so so so much for reviewing. To a certain reviewer, nobody in my stories ever has a normal birthday. Please R & R**


	17. Chapter 17

_**I am so so so so so so sorry about being so late, I had drama camp(we did aladdin) for the past two weeks and had the worst case of writers . Before you start reading, I would like to clarify something. There is absolutely no sexual content of any kind in this fic. Cosette was not raped in the last chapter, she was whipped, and so has Epnine, she has never been raped and never will be, well in this fic anyway. Thank you, and to Peggy: You'll just have to see.**_

The words rang in my head, but I refused to believe them.

"No. No no no no no NO!" I placed my hands over my head. I looked at Marius. The room had gone silent except for the occasional sob from Gavroche or Cosette. "You're lying. YOU'RE LYING TO ME, TELL ME SHE'S OKAY, MARIUS PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU TELL ME SHE'S OKAY DAMMIT!" I felt hot wet tears trailing down my face and splashing down, soaking into our carpet. I felt myself growing less angry, and more devastated, shocked, call it whatever you want, but all I knew was this:

I couldn't sit around here, I had to do something.

I quickly walked towards the door, only to be held back, by many of my friends."LET ME GO, I HAVE TO HELP HER I HAVE TO SAVE HER THEY'RE GONNA KILL HER!" I thrashed about in my friends' arms as the dragged me back to the living room.

"Enj, you'll do absolutely no good barging in there without a plan!" Combeferre scolded me.

"Yes I will, I'm gonna bring her back here and make that bitch of a father wish he was never born, and all his stupid bastard friends!"

"You'll get yourself killed alongside her!"

"BETTER TO DIE WITH HER THAN LIVE WITHOUT HER, KNOWING I COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING!"

"ENOUGH!" We all stopped short at the word. Surprisingly it did not come from me, nor Combeferre, nor Courfeyrac, not even Grantaire. No. Instead it came from a head of blond hair with blood and tear stained cheeks. Cosette. She glared at all of us."Enjolras, Combeferre's right. You can't just barge in there and take on all of them. But you're right too. We can't just wait and hope for the best." At this point we had gathered around her, listening to her, myself and Gavroche trying to find some kind of comfort in her words."I grew up in that miserable inn. I've learned a thing or two. You can't sneak up on a Thenadrier. And you can't beat them with brute force." My face fell at this, but she wasn't finished. "You need a plan. And lucky for you you've got two people that know that place inside and out." She and Gavroche looked to each other, then back at us. Combeferre smiled a little.

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"Those bastards won't know what hit em." Courfeyrac grinned. Grantaire smiled.

"Let's get our girl back."

* * *

~a few days later~

* * *

Eponine's P.O.V

A giant, bleeding, throbbing bruise. That's what I felt like. I couldn't tell where the pain started or where it ended. It was just there, constantly reminding me of its presence. I didn't cry, I couldn't cry. Crying showed weakness, I couldn't show weakness or they'd hurt me more. More burns, more beatings. The only thing that kept me going through those days were the thoughts of Enjolras and Gavroche. Of Enjolras's sweet kisses in the moonlight, of his long red hoodie that had brought us together in the first place, of his mass of blond curls that framed a chisled face that housed two bright blue eyes. Thoughts of Gavroche's child like glee and his constant optimism, of his intelligence that allowed him to stay with me, of his relationship with Courfeyrac that made me able to trust him. Those thoughts were the only solace I had in that time. I wondered if I'd ever get to see another time, if I'd be able to once more feel comfort instead of pain. If I'd make it to my next birthday. My thoughts were interrupted as I heard a knock at the door downstairs. I pressed my ear to the door, not daring to open it, reminding myself that if I did that my father would punish me dearly for it.

"Comin comin." My mother hurried to the door.

"Good evening madame, may I interest you in purchasing some wine?" I tensed up, smiling a little. Grantaire. Grantaire was at the door, but why was he saying that. Grantaire was often too drunk to get a job. Although it made sense a wine lover would be selling some, to by some more, but why was he at my house, he knew who lived here.

"Gimme that." She must have grabbed the bottle.

"Thank you maam...although I must say you look rather, tired, mind if I come in, make you some tea or something?" I was confused. Grantaire was gay and my mom was fourty years older than him.(56) Why would he be coming in and being all...suave?

* * *

Enjolras's P.O.V

I smiled as I watched Grantaire walk into the inn. The plan was working. Combeferre grinned beside me and turned on the radio."He's in." I was glad that Gavroche was at home and not in the fray about to occur.

"Okay, Courf, Marius, head in through the back, I saw the men leave an hour ago." Cosette's voice came through it. "Enj, Ferre, try to find that window I was talking about, she'll be in there." Combeferre turned off the radio. Bossuet and Jehan were one either ends of the road, watching for the van that housed Eponine's parents. Joly stood by with a first aid kit. He had been put on medical assistance duty for when we got out with Eponine. And on phone duty, for calling 911 at the same time. Combeferre nodded to me and we ran to the inn. We went around the house, ducking beneath the low windows. Soon we got to a wall that only had one window, on the second floor. That had to be it. Combeferre smiled and got out his grappling hook. Why he even had a grappling hook, I don't know, but I had learned not to question him over the years.

"This is it." He said. He swung the grappling hook up to the window and thankfully it hooked onto the window sill. He passed the rope to me."Go get her." He grinned. I smiled and hugged him.

"Thanks man." He shrugged and practically started pushing me up. I climbed up as quickly as I could and opened the window. I almost fell as I was met with a sight almost too horrible to comprehend. Her back was practically red and coated with blood. Her hair was matted and tangled. "Ep, Ep it's me!" I hissed. She turned around to face me, her eyes wide.

"Enjolras?" She asked, she sounded hoarse, like she had been screaming for far too long. I pushed that thought aside and nodded.

"Yeah, it's me. Come on, we're here to rescue you." I smiled and hled my hand out. She began walking towards me, then fell to the floor. It was then that I noticed one of her legs twisted at an odd angle. I frowned and slipped into her room. I helped her onto what seemed to be a bed, although it was just a mattress on the floor. I pulled out my phone and called Grantaire. "Hello, yeah, it's me, I'm upstairs, pretend I'm your boss." He did as I said and said something about pinoir. "I need you to get her mom out of the room." He told me he'd get on it. Some time later I heard a door close and I sighed. I looked at Eponine. I hugged her and she hugged back, crying into my hoodie. I took it off and draped it around her shoulders."Come on, we're going home." I draped her arm over my shoulder and slowly helped her to the stairs. I got down them, carrying her on my back.

"Well well, what do we have here, someone tryna escape." It was Thenadrier. Eponine's wretched father. His cronies were around him. Two big bulky guys had Bossuet and Combeferre. Thenadrier himself had Grantaire in his grasp. "Now, , I believe you know my friend. Babet, aint that your brat?" I paled as I recognized the man. My father, my own father now stood before me. Smirking. I nearly dropped Eponine, then remembered why we were here, to get Eponine out of here. "Okay, here's how it's gonna go. Either you hand over my daughter, or throats get slit." He wasn't bluffing, it was then that I noticed all the boys had a knife or something sharp held to their necks. But I knew that this had been done on purpose by the boys. I put Eponine behind me and nodded to Bossuet. He smirked and elbowed his captor in the gut, after the man dropped him, he let out an ear piercing whistle and Bahorel, Jehan Courfeyrac, Marius, Cosette and a few other boys that were friends of Bossuet's, burst through the back door. I grinned and watched them join the fray. Holding onto Eponine, I slipped out the back door where nobody noticed me and ran to Joly.

"ENJOLRAS, HURRY!" I did as he said. I picked up Eponine Bridal style, who had now passed out, likely from pain and exhaustion, and carried her to Joly. I set her down in front of Joly and he immediately began helping her and tending to her wounds. He passed me the phone and I dialed 911. Within an hour ambulances and a police cars pulled up outside the inn. A pair of paramedics came over to where the three of us were and put Eponine onto a stretcher. This time Joly and I both went with her. I watched from the back as policemen came out, Thenadrier in hand cuffs with his cronies in similar positions behind him. Grantaire and Cosette were each being loaded into other ambulances. I felt a pit in my stomach. Grantaire was one of my best friends, and I knew Marius would never forgive me after this. With Cosette being whipped when they had been captured and now being taken to the hospital. I saw him go with Cosette and Combeferre with Grantaire. Courfeyrac came out and found our car, driving back to the apartment to get Gavroche, tell him the semi good news. I sighed and sat down with Eponine, who, even with everything that was happening, was smiling at me.

"You came back for me."She said, almost like a question. I smiled and held her battered hand.

"Always."


	18. an

So, that was my last chapter, for now, or forever, depeneding on you guys. tell me whether or not you want me to put in an epilogue or not in the reviews


	19. Chapter 19

Enjorlas's P.O.V

As we got to the hospital and the paramedics took Eponine away from Joly and I, I began to pace. So we waited, and waited, and waited. As the hours passed, we watched in sadness as Grantaire came in, and then Cosette was wheeled away from us as well. I watched the paramedics with her leave the room, and then was promptly punched in the shoulder. I yelped and looked over at the culprit, who turned out, surprisingly, to be Marius. He was red in the face with anger and was breathing heavily.

"This all your fault." He breathed, then glared back up at me again."THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOURS AND YOUR STUPID GIRLFRIEND'S!" He yelled angrily at me. I felt my own face heat up as he mentioned Eponine.

"MY FAULT, HOW THE FUCK IS ANY OF THIS MY FAULT, AND HOW DARE YOU, HOW FUCKING DARE YOU, BLAME EPONINE FOR THIS, NONE OF THIS WAS HER FAULT! I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT HER BEST FRIEND WOULD HAVE REALIZED THAT!"

"OH, SURE, BEST FRIEND MY ASS. DO YOU EVER SEE THE TWO OF US HANGING OUT ANY MORE?"

"WELL MAYBE IF YOU WEREN'T SO FOCUSED ON YOUR OWN LONELY ASS SOUL AND YOUR GIRLFRIEND, WHO YOU DON'T DESERVE, MAYBE YOU MIGHT HAVE A CHANCE TO!" I yelled back.

"G-guys?" A trembling voice asked us. I turned my head towards its source and saw a shocked/disappointed Courfeyrac holding a slowly crying Gavroche on his shoulders. Normally that sort of thing would have made the ten year old feel better, but I probably should have guessed that that was not the case. "P-please, s-stop yelling." He stammered. I sighed and felt the heat leave my face, and I saw the extra colour drain from Marius' face as well. I went over to Gavroche. Courfeyrac put him down in front of me and I knelt so I could be at his level. I put my arms around him.

"I'm sorry Gav, I'm just worried about them."

"We all are." Combeferre's voice washed over me like the calm after a storm. I picked up Gavroche and smiled a little." If you wanna talk to us, just let one of us know." I told him. He nodded. I kept him in my arms for a while, even when I sat down. He didn't complain once. the hours of the day slowly leaked into the hours of the night. Gavroche fell asleep after a few hours and was now resting on the sofa. Courfeyrac was braiding Jehan's hair, apparently braiding something helped him relax, and Jehan was happy to have someone braid it for him, as he could never quite reach the top part of his hair. I chuckled. They'd make a nice couple. I was looking around for Feuilly and Musichetta when I remembered that they had broken up. Never the less, they were both there, only Musichetta was with Joly, and Bossuet, all of them either arguing or blushing profusely. Feuilly was on his own, but he seemed to be okay with that. Bahorel was looking after Gavroche. Combeferre was pacing as well. Marius had gone outside in the snow a little while ago. Apparently he was awaiting for Valjean to show up. My mind kept wandering to Grantaire's parents. Would they show up, now that their son was in the hospital, or would they still stay away from him. Even the thought of that made me sick. When he came out to them, Grantaire's parents had kicked him out and he had come to live with us. I saw Marius re enter with Valjean, the younger boy's hair dusted with snowflakes. It took me a little while to remember that christmas would be in less than a month. Funny how one would forget something like that.

* * *

My thoughts were interrupted as I heard a voice.

"Under different circumstances, I'd say it was nice to see you all again, and some new faces as well, but...well, this is a hospital." Dr Dorian's familiar eyes met mine."I'm assuming you're all here for Eponine."

"Not just them Doc, we have two other friends here." Courfeyrac came over, he had already finished with Jehan's hair. Dorian frowned.

"I see." he nodded."Well, anyway, I'm afraid she's not up yet. The other doctors said that she might not for a while ." He said solemnly."She's not sick at least this time so that's a good thing, but with the severity of her injuries..." He trailed off. We all understood, what happened would be up to fate. He looked at Gavroche's sleeping figure."I would suggest that one of you take him home for-"

"No, he's staying with us. All of us." Courfeyrac interrupted. I mentally winced at his tone. The doctor sighed.

"Alright, if you say so." Marius and Combeferre went up to him.

"Excuse me sir, would you happen to know anything about another young woman and a man with curly black hair that came in, would you?" Combeferre asked. The man thought for a moment.

"Oh, yes, actually I do. Follow me." He said. Combeferre, Marius, Valjean and I obliged and did as he asked. He stopped first at a room labeled: 107. I looked in and saw Grantaire, laying there with his phone in hand and a bandage around his arm and head. Combeferre rushed in and hugged him. I smiled and decided to come back later, figuring that I could check on Cosette first, and thank her. I went with Valjean and Marius, trying to remain behind the pair of them. We eventually stopped at another room labeled: 186. We went inside and saw Cosette sitting up, her nose in a book. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Marius hugged her and Valjean did as well. I stood back a little. She looked over at me after talking with her father and boyfriend for a bit. Her smile melted a little.

"Any news yet?" She asked.

" It's worse than last time, it's about a 60/40 chance." I said sadly, refusing to make eye contact. She sighed and nodded."Look, I just wanted to say..thank you, for the plan, for being there for her, for-"

"Enj, it's fine." She smiled a bit, but I felt like she had just sworn at me. Only Eponine could call me Enj. Only her. Not Combeferre, not Cosette, not any of the les amis. And there was nothing I wanted more at that moment than for those word's to be coming out of the mouth that I loved kissing so much. I left without saying another word and decided to take a walk.

* * *

I slipped on my coat and touque(Or hat for all the americans out there) before I headed out into the cold. When we had been more focused on the mission, it hadn't really bothered me as much as it did now. Although I suppose the fact I was alone had something to do with it. I stared up at the night sky that was blurred by the falling flakes. I chuckled to myself and stuck my tongue out, like I did as a child, to catch one of the fluffy bits of snow on my tongue. I managed to get a few in before it got cold again. I sat down on a bench and looked across the street at some store another. It was selling christmas decorations. I don't know why, but I found myself crossing the street and walking inside. The warmth was welcome in my system and I glanced around the small shop. I went over to the aisle with tiny christmas trees. I looked at one that was purple. And not like a magenta purple that you'd see Cosette wearing, but a dark purple that almost looked navy. I looked at the price and smiled. I brought the plastic decoration to the register and walked back to the hospital with it in my backpack.

* * *

By the time I got back, most the amis had left. I checked my phone and saw a message from everyone that wasn't in the hospital except Marius, Valjean, Combeferre and Courfeyrac. I looked over and saw my curly haired friend relaxing with Gavroche on his lap, who was still sleeping. i sat down beside him.

"Pretty quiet, isn't it?" He said, smiling a little.

"Yeah." I nodded. I looked at Gavroche."Maybe Dorian was right and we should take him-"

"No, I said once, I'll say it again, we're staying here until she wakes up and he gets to see her." He interrupted me yet again. I looked at him. I saw his eyes, and his composure, and his posture. It looked as though Grantaire had been body swapped with Courfeyrac.

"Courf, this isn't about Gavroche, is it?" I asked."It's about her, isn't it." I stated, not even bothering to waver from the statement. Courfeyrac sniffled.

"I don't want him to go through what I went through with me mam. I wasn't there when she woke up, the last thing I ever said to her was 'I know.' And I'm pretty damn sure that dad said something meaningful. And where was I when she died, asleep." He said, trying not to wake Gavroche. I frowned. I knew that Courf's mum had been fairly sick before she died. I never really knew just how bad he felt about it until then. "I just..I don't want him to have to go through that if that's what happens." He said. I nodded.

"Okay Courf, if that's what you think is right, then,that's what we do." He chuckled.

"I'm so using those words against you in the future." He smiled at me. I rolled my eyes.

"I know."

* * *

It must have been another hour or so before we finally got some news. Dorian rushed into the waiting room and caught his breath.

"She's awake." He panted. Courf gently woke up Gavroche and the three of us rushed over to Dorian, who quickly lead us to Her room. We opened it and there she lay, her eyes a smidge open and her long brown hair was spread around her pale face like some sort of chocolatey halo. She smiled at us.

"Hey." She whispered. Just that was enough to make Gavroche and I hug her tighter than we probably ever had before, as though she would slip away from us again if we let go. I looked at her.

"Don't you, ever, ever do something like that again, you hear me?!" I wept. I'm not ashamed to say it, I was crying like a baby. She only chuckled and nodded.

"I promise Enj." She looked down at Gavroche and picked him up and put him on the bed."Glad to see someone else is willing to wait for me."

"Hey, don't thank me just yet sis, I probably would have been taken home if it weren't for Courf." He smiled. Eponine smiled and thanked Courfeyrac. He shrugged. I smiled at him too. He looked at Gavroche.

"Come on Gav, we should head home now." He said."Say bye." He smiled. Gavroche rolled his eyes.

"I'm not 6 anymore, you don't have to tell me to say bye." He said. Either way, he kissed Eponine's forehead and said a quick 'love you' before leaving with Courfeyrac. The two of us were finally alone. I looked at Eponine and she looked back. It was a few seconds before we finally kissed and we enjoyed every minute of it. I knew, in that moment, that she was the love of my life, and that I would never, ever let her father near her again. Or her mother. Or any of their friends. Or my bastard father...my father. my own father had been helping to hurt her for god knows how many years, maybe he had been doing it while he was hurting me, who knows.

"Hey, are you okay Enj?" She asked. I shook my head.

"It's nothing. Just thinking about us." I smiled. Not a lie, just, not the whole truth. She smiled.

"Alright, sounds fake but alright." She replied with a yawn."Hey, I think I'm gonna get some sleep now." She yawned again as I chuckled.

"Never change Ep..never change." I whispered as she fell asleep

* * *

A few weeks later, Eponine was finally home. She was using a cane similar to the one Joly had once used when he was younger and was on bed rest for the rest of the month. Thankfully this time she obliged and promised us she wouldn't leave. IT was a few days before christmas and I was in her room with her and Grantaire, who had come home with nothing but a sprained wrist a while ago. Combeferre had been fussing all over him and thankfully, he was out with Bossuet and Bahorel doing their own christmas shopping. Gavroche was hanging out with Jehan and Courfeyrac at the moment and Feuilly, Joly, Cosette(who had come out of the hospital with a small scar or two), Marius and Musichetta were at Marius' house doing something or other. I looked up at my girlfriend and my best friend with a smile. Grantaire was braiding her hair and I was supposed to be shooing him out so I could take care of Eponine's back, but he was as stubborn as she was and before I knew it, I was just watching his hands work and listening to her talk about this and that. The show had been post poned until further notice, but if we were being honest with ourselves, we were pretty sure that it wouldn't be happening. I had done my Christmas shopping while Eponine was still in the hospital and now she would have no idea where to look.

"Hey R, do you know what you're getting Ferre for christmas?" Eponine asked. Grantaire thought for a moment.

"It'd better not be wine." I smirked at him.

"It's not! Jeez, one time. If you must know, I'm getting him some yarn and knitting needles." WE snorted.

"Wait, Ferre-"

"He knits?!" We chortled. He smiled.

"Yeah, he does, so don't say anything or he'll be crazy mad at me."

"Like when you guys stole his glasses mad?"

"Worse." We took a minute to think about that and collectively shuddered.

"Okay, consider us your secret keepers." Eponine smirked, and so did I. R rolled his eyes.

"I should have known you'd manage to work in a harry potter reference there."

* * *

And so the days went by until finally, it was christmas eve. Everyone had agreed to sleep over at Marius' huge house. The tree was bigger than we were and had at least a hundred different ornaments. The fireplace blazed and cast a cozy light over the room. Everyone wore a sweater Ferre had knitted especially for them. Mine had black dots and was mostly red. Eponine had a borwn and green sweater, Grantaire had green and white, with the words: world's biggest goof on the front. I'd describe the rest, but that'd take far too long. The tree was surrounded by presents. I was happy to say that I actually went for something sentimental this year instead of practical. We strung popcorn and had a delicious dinner, courtesy of Marius' grandfather and the staff. I was amazed that he managed to remain so humble with all that he had. Either way, everyone kissed someone at least once, aside from Gavroche of course. As the night went no, people got sleepy, and tipsy, and eventually I was the last one up. I looked around at my friends, at my family. I reveled in how lucky I was to have them. I had so much baggage with me and they just took all of it with a smile. I sighed happily and walked over to the piano. I began to play a little christmas tune. I was interrupted by some footsteps and a cane clacking against the floor.

"And what are you doing up missy, you should still be on the couch." I turned around to see my beloved standing beside me.

"I've been there for hours, let me sit down." She smiled. I sighed and obliged, shuffling over on the bench. I began playing again and soon she joined me. I can't quite recall what we were even playing, all I know is that she was beautiful in the dimming firelight. She rsted her head on my shoulder and I smiled.

"Enjolras, when I met you, I thought you were a loon."

"Oh really, well, when I met you I thought you were just as loony." I smiled. She chuckled.

"But now.."

"But now?"

"Everything's just so, so..."

"Lovely."

"Calm." She replied."Enj, I couldn't ever imagine myself with anyone but you."

"Not even Marius."

"Oh god, especially not Marius." She smiled.

"Good to know."

"Look, my point is, no matter what happens, I wanna be with you. Do you think we'lll, ya know, last."

"My dear Eponine, you're no longer on your own, but with us. You have friends, you have me...I have you. Someone I never thought I would have. And I never want you to hurt like you did, or be as scared as you were or any other negative emotion you felt with your father. I want you to be happy, and then, that'll make me happy...so what do you say? Forever and always?" She hesitated, and for a brief moment I thought she might not say it back. Until finally the three words that had determined our friendship, and our love, came swinging our of her beautiful mouth.

"Forever and always, to the ends of the earth."


End file.
